On March 6, 15-year-old Kaylanne Timoteo Freitas lost her arm in a shark attack at Piedade Beach in Pernambuco State, Brazil. Soon after news broke of the attack, pictures and videos exploded across the internet, showing the teen’s injuries in gruesome detail as she screamed in pain.
Now, the teen is firing back at those who chose to film her rather than helping in the aftermath of the life-altering incident.
The grisly footage captured by bystanders on the beach shows beachgoers pulling the 15-year-old from the water, a large portion of her left arm missing entirely. They then continued to film as others did their best to help and comfort Kaylanne, as she was clearly in extreme pain.
First responders soon arrived on the scene, airlifting the teen to a nearby hospital. There, doctors amputated even more of her arm. As she recovered in the hospital, Kaylanne spoke to local news outlets about her harrowing ordeal, slamming those who filmed and shared the worst moment of her life.
“After 10 minutes, I felt two pressures,” she recalled of the shark attack, per Daily Star. “I even thought ‘there’s something here.'”
The teen was far from the only swimmer. Unbelievably, in fact, others continued to swim, even after the water surrounding Kaylanne turned red – a detail she vividly remembers.
“At the time, I thought someone was playing a prank on me because there were many people around me,” she said. “I still had doubts. I thought, ‘this isn’t happening to me. It’s a nightmare.’ I thought I was going to wake up. It was only in the ambulance that it sunk in.”
Disfigured Teen and Her Father Express Disgust at Crowd’s Reaction to Shark Attack
Kaylanne explained that the shark first bit her in the stomach. It was when she attempted to fight off the attack that the shark latched onto her arm instead, ultimately tearing it off.
According to the teen, a young man pulled her from the water to wait for first responders. The horror didn’t end once she made it to the beach, however. Lying in the sand in agony, Kaylanne was horrified to see most bystanders pulling out their phones to film rather than doing what they could to help her or at least preserve her privacy.
“No one respected me at the time,” she recalled angrily. “I understand that it’s something that everyone wants to record, to show what’s happening. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking about that. I just thought I was going to lose my arm for the rest of my life.”
Her father, Wilque Barros Freitas, was equally disgusted by the crowd’s reaction to the shark attack. “During the attack, there were people filming instead of helping, aside from the comments. That’s what killed me inside,” he said.
Following extensive reconstructive surgery, Kaylanne returned home. Though her body is recovering, she suffers severe postoperative pain and pain attacks as a result of the shark attack. “For 15 years of my life, I had my entire arm,” she said. “I’ve been reborn and will have to relearn everything all over again.”