Shark Attacks Off Fire Island Beaches In New York, Two Children Injured

Two children suffered from large fish bites in two separate apparent shark attacks off Fire Island beaches Wednesday afternoon.

A 13-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl were bitten minutes apart at Sailors Haven and Atlantique Beach, the New York Post reported. The two beaches along Fire Island National Seashore are over 4 miles apart.

The children were provided with immediate medical attention at the scene and then at the hospital. The injuries were not life threatening.

The injured girl, Lola Pollina, told Fox 10 she and her younger brother had been standing in waist-deep water at Sailors Haven when she saw something in the water.

“It was a ten-inch orangey body and then there was a fin and then I got out, and my leg was bloody,” Lola said to CBS New York. “We went to the lifeguards, we ran up to them and they kind of bandaged it.”

Her mother, Barbara Pollina said, “I saw a lot of thrashing and her trying to get to me.”

"When I got out, my leg was bloody and I saw scratch marks kind of," Lola said to Fox 10. "They were bite marks but they looked like scratches."

Lola said that when she first got bit, she couldn’t feel it due to the coldness of the water. She began to feel pain when the lifeguards poured water on the wound and wrapped it in gauze.

“I think it was a shark attack," Philip Pollina, Lola’s father, said to ABC News, “When I saw the bite, there was a bite on her leg, there was no question what it was.”

In the second attack that happened minutes after the first at Atlantique Beach, a 13-year-old boy was bitten by a large fish.

Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter told ABC News the boy was bitten after a wave knocked him of his boogie board. When the lifeguards took the boy to a tent to dress his wounds, they found puncture wounds, she said.

A shark tooth was found lodged in the wound. The species of the shark responsible is yet to be determined according to NBC New York. The boy walked on his own to a police boat.

He was taken to Southside Hospital, whereas the girl was taken to the Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center.

“Both of these young kids, thank God, are okay,” Carpenter said, adding that the claim the attacks were by sharks have not been confirmed yet.

Long Island Press reported that the Fire Island National Seashore (FINS) officials said the tooth found was consistent with a large fish. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Marine Bureau has not confirmed the incident as a shark bite, officials said.

The bites were definitely from a shark, George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History told ABC News. He added that the size and shape of the bites, and the tooth that was found showed the shark was a smaller shark of a larger species, or a shark species that was smaller in size.

All beaches along the Fire Island National Seashore and within the Town of Islip were closed for the day due to the incident, reported ABC News.

"We’re seeing this as an opportunity to remind everyone that the water is beautiful — its magnificent here on the south shore of Long Island, but treacherous. So you need to be careful at all times.” Carpenter said.