Mom nicknamed 'Shark Bait' recovering from attack
INDIAN HARBOUR BEACH, Fla. — Boogie board in hand, Amy Tatsch returned to the ocean to face her fears at Juan Ponce de León Landing, the beach where a 6-foot bull shark nearly tore off her lower right leg last May.
Three of her sons, 15-year-old twins Christopher and David and 10-year-old Matthew, joined her. Tatsch felt apprehensive and uneasy to begin with — and then she saw a terrifying sight.
"My kids were out boogie boarding, and I'm just standing there like a hawk. Then I saw a fin — and of course, I started freaking out," Tatsch recalled.
"And there's porpoises going back and forth," she said, laughing.
The 39-year-old Indian Harbour Beach mom summoned her courage and hit the waves that day, a month and a half ago. Nicknamed "Shark Bait" by her friends, she has not fully recovered from the May 15 attack that landed her in a Melbourne hospital for 13 days. She endured five surgeries.
"I was very nervous, anxious. Anxiety was kicking in. But I'm glad I did it," Tatsch said of her boogie boarding session.
"I still have nightmares. I still think about it quite a bit. I still talk about it quite a bit. I went through a period of just being bummed out. I've overcome that, just based on the fact that I'm still here to talk about it. I still have my leg. So it's gotten a lot better."
The bull shark sank its teeth deep into Tatsch's right calf, lacerating her Achilles tendon. She hopped onto her boogie board and folded her mutilated flesh back into place with her hand, bleeding profusely.
After using a wheelchair, walker and crutches, Tatsch underwent 2 1/2 months of physical therapy because of the shark bite.
"Physical therapy worked pretty good. I still have a limp — it usually gets worse in the evening. Nerve pain: That's a daily thing," she said.
"It's still numb, and there's a few spots I'll probably never be able to feel," she said, rubbing her foot and Achilles tendon.
Tatsch said her leg — now marked with a circular ring of scars from the predator's jaws — suffers sensations ranging from tingling to sharp, shooting pains.
She has connected with a group of fellow shark-attack survivors on Facebook, and she said their stories and advice have helped her.
"I've got friends all over: Australia, Reunion Island, all over," she said. "A friend in Boca Raton, I ended up going to meet him a few months back. He lost his arm 38 years ago to a lemon shark. So it was really kind of neat to meet him, compare stories and scars."