A 13-year-old boy bitten by a possible shark off Fire Island, authorities investigating a second alleged attack



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Authorities investigate whether a 13-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl who both suffered large fish bites in the waters off Fire Island were victims of shark attacks .

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Shortly before noon today, officials said, the girl He was bitten by wading in the water on a beach known as Sailors Haven on Fire Island, a barrier beach at off the south shore of Long Island.

The girl's mother, Barbara Pollina, told ABC News that her daughter Lola "stays in there – a little overwhelmed at the moment."

Shortly after this attack, the boy was bitten while the boogie was boarding the waters off another beach in Fire Island, known as the Atlantic, according to officials. The two beaches are separated by several kilometers.

Emergency medical officers removed a suspicious shark tooth from the leg of an unidentified boy, who suffered a sting injury, according to officials of the Islip Town in Islip. Long Island. The tooth is being analyzed to determine the source of the attack.

"These two young children, thank God, are doing well," said Islip Town supervisor Angie Carpenter at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

  PHOTO: Lola Pollina is being treated by first responders after suffering from a possible shark bite off Fire Island in New York City on July 18, 2018. Philip Pollina
Lola Pollina is treated by first responders after suffering The shark bit off Fire Island in New York on July 18, 2018.

Carpenter said the boy had been bitten after a wave had it stunned on his boogie board. Rescuer Bella Cohen took the boy to a tent and dressed his wound. It was then that puncture injuries were discovered, Carpenter said.

The boy was transported by police boat to a local hospital, she said.

Dueling's responses from various officials at noon left some confusion as to what had attacked the two young men.

Officials from the city of Islip first confirmed that the boy's bite was indeed a shark attack, but later issued a statement saying that the 13-year-old was being bitten by "what could have been a shark".
"It has not been fully confirmed" that the boy was bitten by a shark, Carpenter said, but rescuers and emergency medical personnel who treated the victim assumed that it was "bad. was a shark bite.

  PHOTO: Lola Pollina is being treated by first responders after suffering from a possible shark bite off Fire Island in New York, July 18, 2018. Barbara Pollina
Lola Pollina is treated by first responders Suffolk County and the National Parks Service – which oversees some of Fire Island's beaches – have not yet confirmed that one or the other of the bites came from sharks. County authorities said that even though the bite appeared to come from a shark, there had been no shark sighting so far.

A National Parks Service official told ABC News that the designation for a shark attack must come from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Lola's father, Philip Pollina, said that he could tell what he was seeing when he looked at his injury.

"I think it was a shark attack," he said at a press conference, "When I saw the bite, there was a bite on his leg, there was no question. "

Her daughter, who agreed with the assessment of her father, said that she had gone through the incident intact.

"I thought it was a shark," said the 12-year-old girl at the press conference: "We were at the beach and there was no tiger or what whether it's ".

The young woman waded in the water at the waist when she saw what appeared to be a three to four foot shark.

"When I started biting, I could not feel it, so it did not hurt that much."

It was only after the rescuers started pouring water over the wound and wrapping it in gauze that she began to wince.

The beaches of Islip Town and all the beaches of Fire Island National Park are closed for at least the day following the attack.

  PHOTO: A staircase descends to Ocean Beach at Fire Island, NY, in this undated photo Judie Long / Newscom
A staircase descends to Ocean Beach at Fire Island, NY, in this undated photo [19659012] Further west and a few hours after the two attacks, bathers were evacuated from the waters of Robert Moses State Park and Jones Beach after a rescuer spotted a shark.

According to George Gorman, deputy regional director of the National Board of Parks, Recreation and Preservation of Long Island Historical Monuments, state police sent a drone into the air to search for sharks in the waters.

Swimmers were allowed to return to the water after the lifeguard's observation was confirmed as a sandbank shark. The gray shark is considered a relatively benign shark, which feeds on fish, crabs and rays – and is not known to attack humans.

Carpenter, the supervisor of the town of Islip, said that a mid summer reminder was in order for beach lovers from the south shore.

"We see this as an opportunity to remind everyone that the water is beautiful – it's beautiful here on the south shore of Long Island, but treacherous."

"So you have to be careful at all times."

A shark expert said that the bites were definitely a shark.

George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History, told ABC News that the bites were "definitely" from a shark.

Burgess says that the size and shape of the bites, and the tooth embedded in the leg of a victim, indicate that the shark is either a small shark of a larger species, or a species of small size.

He said that he was unlikely to be a great white shark, as such a shark would probably have caused much more serious injuries, and the victims might not have been able to walk around after.

He said, however, that he would need to look at a better picture of the tooth to be able to make accurate assessments.

Attacks occur just days before the July 22 launch of Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week" marathon, now in its 30th year.

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