A TEENAGE girl died after an 8ft shark tore off her leg as she swam at a Florida beach, sparking panic along one of America’s most popular coastlines.

Witnesses said that 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle, a holidaymaker from Gonzales, Louisiana, was dragged under as she swam with a friend off Destin, on the Gulf of Mexico.

When the girl resurfaced she was unconscious and all that was left of her leg was the thigh bone. Tom Dicus, 54, a surfer who had seen the two girls splashing happily in the water moments earlier on their boogie-boards — a miniature version of a surfboard — was alerted by the friend’s screams.

“I turned around and saw one of the girls swimming towards the beach frantically and the other one had disappeared and there was a big dark spot where she used to be,” he said.

“I paddled over and found her floating face down in the centre of a blood pool and right next to her was the shark, about to come up and attack her again.” As Mr Dicus attempted to haul the dying girl on to his surfboard, the shark made a second lunge.

Mr Dicus punched it on the nose and it backed off, allowing him to get Miss Daigle fully out of the water and start paddling her back to shore.

Other surfers joined their boards together to make a raft and help to tow him in as the shark continued to circle, at one point attempting to seize the girl’s hand that was dangling over the edge of the surfboard.

“I’ve never seen a shark get that aggressive,” Mr Dicus said.

“He just followed us right to the beach. He was determined to finish lunch.”

The teenager was given first aid by paramedics on the beach but was pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby Sacred Heart Hospital.

It was the first fatal shark attack in America this year. Last year 30 incidents were recorded around the country, two of them fatal. There were 12 attacks in Florida during that period. Local officials closed down a 20-mile stretch of water to swimmers immediately after the attack, though the beaches were reopened yesterday.

Experts advised that the attacker was probably a bull shark, considered to be one of the most dangerous species.

They believe that it probably barged into the girl accidentally while attacking a shoal of fish in the waters just beyond a sandbar, an area where sharks often congregate as they hunt for food.

Professor George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, in Gainesville, said that the shark was unlikely to attack again.

Recent victims

• April 2004, Maui, Hawaii: Willis McInnis, 57, a surfer

  
  

• July 2004, Perth, Australia: Brad Smith, 29, a surfer

  
  

• August 2004, San Francisco, US: Randy Fry, 50, a diver

  
  

• November 2004, Fish Hoek, South Africa: Tyna Webb, 77, a swimmer

  
  

• December 2004, Adelaide, Australia: Nick Petersen, 18, a surfer

  
  

• December 2004, Cairns, Australia: Mark Thompson, 38, a spearfisherman

  
  

• March 2005, Perth, Australia: Geoffrey Brazier, 26, a charter-boat skipper

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