Shark Attack In Louisiana: Boy, 7, Sustains Bite Wounds Off Southshore Harbor

A shark attack in Louisiana happened Friday when a 7-year-old boy sustained bite wounds off Southshore Harbor in Lake Lake Pontchartrain.

As reported by The Times-Picayune, Trent Trentacosta was enjoying the cool water with some other kids when he felt something bite his foot. His mother, Shelly Trentacosta, describes the incident while they were all out in the lake with a friend’s sailboat:

“The kids were bunched up together playing, and Trent just started screaming. We started swimming to him, and I didn’t know what was going on. I grabbed his leg, and there was a lot of blood.”

Trentacosta brought her son back to the boat so she could examine his injuries. At first she thought Trent stepped on a stingray, but with the amount of blood oozing out, it had to be something else. She wondered if he’d scraped his foot on some barnacles from a log. Trent needed medical attention whatever the problem was, so they sailed back quickly to the dock and rushed to urgent care. Doctors cleaned up the injuries and informed Trentacosta that her son was bitten by a shark.

As the images show here, bite marks are around his heel.

Trentacosta details what her son experienced in the shark attack:

“(Trent) had been screaming so much, it wasn’t until he settled down that he told us something charged at him from under the water. He said that when he was swimming, something bumped him from the back. He turned around to look, and then he felt it swim around to the front of him, and when he turned again, it charged at him.”

Unbeknownst to a lot of boaters, Lake Pontchartain contains a lot of sharks during certain times of the year, according to Mitchell Chevalier, who tags sharks for the University of New Orleans and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He says that includes bull sharks, which are one of the species known to be “man-eaters.”

At first, Chevalier was skeptical that Trent experienced a shark attack because this isn’t the time of year sharks would be in the lake. He speculated that a garfish bit him, even though they’re “laid-back creatures,” he says. If the 7-year-old boy accidentally made contact with the gar’s nose, it might have reacted by snapping at him. After looking at the boy’s shark wounds, he says without a doubt it was a bull shark.

“Without a doubt, it’s a bull shark — probably around 5 feet,” he said.

Doctors say the Trent will make a full recovery. He’s not supposed to walk until his foot heals. Some of the wounds were deep enough that stitches were required, but the family opted against it since Trent didn’t like the idea.

“(Trent) was kind of freaked out,” Trent’s mother says. “We decided we’ll just wrap them and keep them taped together.”

Trentacosta is shocked that a shark attack would happen in Lake Pontchartrain after all these years of going there. When the shark attack happened, she said Trent had to fight to get away because the shark was really “clamped down” on him.

WJCL News reports that on Wednesday a 10-year-old boy was bit by a shark in South Carolina off Folly Beach. His wounds required stitches, but he’ll make a full recovery.

[Image via FOX News]