Forget “Jaws,” this horrific animal attack is set to send swimmers spiraling about the friendliest creatures in the sea.
A British woman was left fighting for her life after being bitten by a dolphin while in the waters of Bolivia last month.
Claire Bye, 28, was frolicking in a river in Santa Rosa de Yacuma with a group of fellow tourists on Jan. 3 when a pink river dolphin suddenly sunk its teeth into her right foot.
The gray mammal didn’t release its grip for a staggering 20 seconds, leaving the traumatized traveler’s tootsie partially severed and “pouring with blood.”
”It wasn’t the cute-looking dolphins we’re used to seeing,” Bye recalled of the animal in an interview with South West News Service on Monday. “It had a huge beak with a mouthful of spiky teeth.”
“I screamed and screamed, but it just wouldn’t let go of me,” she said of being bitten by the predator. “My skin was flapping around, and I could see my bone. I just kept thinking I was going to lose my foot.”
Bye was quickly pulled from the water and rushed to a nearby hospital, where her wound required 23 stitches.
But the Brit’s problems were only just beginning. Four days later, the swimmer developed a potentially life-threatening infection and had to be airlifted to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, for further treatment.
“When we arrived at the [first ] hospital, my heart sunk,” Bye said. “It was more like a farmyard than an actual hospital. The people there were very kind and did the best they could to sew up my foot, but they didn’t have any drugs.”
After her foot was stitched up, the tourist was taken into another room to recover.
“There was blood on the floor, and I wasn’t sure if it was my blood or someone else’s,” she harrowingly recalled.
Later, when her wound became infected, Bye required urgent medical treatment from Cemes Hospital in La Paz.
After frantic calls to the British Embassy, she was flown to the medical center, where she underwent a surgical clean to treat the infection and remove the dead tissue.
“After the surgery, I basically had a huge hole in my foot,” Bye stated. “I spent two weeks in hospital in La Paz before I was able to fly home to the UK.”
After returning to England, doctors discovered that the survivor had another infection in her foot.
“I had to have a second surgical clean, and then skin flap surgery where tissue from my groin was transplanted to my foot,” she explained. “They also had to sew the blood vessels together to keep the blood flowing. It’s been really traumatic.”
Bye is employed as an acoustic consultant and hasn’t been able to return to work while her wound heals.
She said she doesn’t know whether she’ll ever be able to walk properly with her right foot.
“I’ve only recently been allowed to put pressure on my foot, and I don’t know how badly my mobility will be affected once it heals,” she said. “I’ve seen a psychologist to help deal with the trauma — I used to have daily flashbacks of the attack.”
Bye has also ruled out swimming with dolphins ever again, despite the rarity of attacks and the fact that they’re considered the friendliest of all sea creatures.
“I used to really love wild swimming, and I hope to be able to do it in the future, but I’ll never swim with dolphins again,” she definitively declared.