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Officials in a North Carolina beach town believe a teenager visiting the area this week was bitten by a shark.
At 15-year-old boy was visiting Wrightsville Beach on Tuesday (July 27) when he was bitten by something in the water, per ABC 11. The incident occurred around 1:30 p.m., according to Chief Glen Rogers of the Wrightsville Beach Fire Department.
The bite happened when the boy was knocked over by a wave while standing in thigh-deep water, his family said. As he stood up, he noticed a sharp pain in his right leg and saw that he had been bitten by a creature on his calf. Lifeguards at the beach called police and 911 Ocean Rescue, and the boy received over a dozen stitches for his injury.
"He's in pain of course, but the doctors took really good care of him," said a family member of the teen.
While no one at the scene were able to get a good look at whatever bit the teen, officials believe it was a shark, with Rogers saying it was likely a wide mouth sand shark.
If the teen was indeed bitten by a shark, it will have been the second time in recent history that a North Carolina beachgoer was attacked by a shark. Last month, a 7-year-old girl was bitten by a shark at Ocean Isle Beach.