Mother saves daughter from shark attack

A relaxing mother-and-daughter surfing trip last Wednesday turned horrific, when the mom saw her 15-year-old daughter being pulled underwater -- twice -- by a large shark, according to several news reports. Mama instincts kicked in, with Valeh Levy pulling the teen, Sydney, back onto her surfboard just off New Smyrna Beach. Even that didn't scare off the shark, which continued to circle the two until nearby surfers heard their screams and helped them to shore. "It was to me like a scene out of 'Jaws,' where the girl's getting sucked under, and I said, 'There's no way this thing is going to kill my daughter,' and I grabbed her shoulders and I pulled her up and I threw her on the nose of my board," Levy told WKMG-TV. On the very same day, another surfer, 17-year-old Nick Romano, was attacked at that beach. He'd only gone out into waist-deep water when the shark encounter happened. The ambulance for him was already at the beach. Levy was whisked away. She had surgery and has since been released from the hospital. Just a few days prior, a bull shark jumped out of the water and bit yet another surfer at Jensen Beach, located about 100 miles from New Smyrna. That victim, Frank Wacha, told ABC News Radio, "I was in the middle of my stroke and paddling and my left arm was like this, and all of a sudden something jumped out of the water and hit my arm. I looked over at it and I was eye-to-eye with a shark." Given the number of recent attacks, experts are wondering if environmental factors could be fueling the dangerous encounters. "Environmental factors that we're suffering on land could also be happening in the water such as climate change, lack of food sources, which changes migratory patterns, and you have 80 million or more tourists that come to those waters, so it's no surprise accidents happen," ocean explorer Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, told ABC. Cousteau, however, thinks the sharks are not targeting humans. They may just be exploring what, to them, could be potential regular prey, such as fish or seals. "Sharks don't have arms like we do, so for them, feeling is feeling with their mouths," he said. There has been an increase in shark attacks worldwide this year so far, according to a report released last month by the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File. Ichthyologist George Burgess just thinks that more people are venturing out into the water these days, increasing the likelihood of meeting a shark. Florida has always been a hot spot for shark attacks, but worldwide another contributing factor is that tourists are now going to more remote water spots, again heightening their risk of a shark encounter.