GALVESTON, Texas — A young woman who was bit by a shark off Jamaica Beach in Galveston is sharing her story with KHOU 11 News anchor Rekha Muddaraj.
Damiana Humphrey, 19, is back home in Durant, Oklahoma and she's expected to make a full recovery.
She's still trying to process the shark attack that happened on May 28, the day after Memorial Day.
Humphrey said she heard her sister-in-law mention seeing something tan in the water.
Seconds later, Humphrey said a shark latched onto her left hand, biting down for about a minute.
"I thought I was imagining it because, at the time, my body didn’t process that pain," Humphrey said. "And I was like, 'I’m not hurting, like I feel like this is a dream' because it happened so fast."
When she realized it was a shark, Humphrey said she fought back and started punching it.
"At the time, nobody saw me fighting with the shark, it was just me. So one of my brothers was like, 'Damiana, chill out,'" she told us. "He thought I was just splashing and stuff, and my other brother was like, 'Stop splashing.' And so I'm over here fighting the shark and they're telling me to chill out and stop splashing."
The shark finally let go of her hand and Humphrey ran to shore.
Her mother alerted other people on the beach, and one of them happened to be a paramedic. They helped stabilize Humphrey’s injury before an ambulance arrived.
"I’m very, very thankful -- the hospital, the paramedics, the guy that was a paramedic, they helped me and my recovery mentally, so much," Humphrey told us.
They think it was a bull shark that ruptured four tendons in her hand and she needed surgery to repair them. Humphrey needs several weeks of physical therapy to regain full use of the hand, which she's anxious to do because she wants to become a nurse.
The attack happened around 7:30 in the evening in waist-deep water, according to Humphrey. She's since learned that sharks are most active and likely to feed during low-light hours between dusk and dawn.
"Shark bites are very rare in the Galveston area," Lt. Austin Kirwin told us. "I have worked full-time with the Galveston Island Beach Patrol since 2011 and this is only the third time it has happened in that time. to my recollection."
The International Shark Attack File, by the Florida Museum of Natural History, shows, there have been 19 shark attacks in Galveston since 1911.