(NECN: Kenneth Craig, Rindge, N.H.) – A mother and her nine-year-old son were struck by lightning Friday night while heading to their lakeside vacation home.

A bolt of lightning ripped through their campsite, creating a terrifying experience.

“It was scary,” Bonnie Mann said. “I couldn’t move my legs. I was paralyzed for a period of time.”

The two are lucky to be alive after being struck at the Rindge, N.H. Vacation home. It was an almost one-in-a-million chance that they were struck Friday night.

“It was a huge vibrating feeling,” Bonnie Mann said. “[It lasted] long enough to wonder when it was going to stop.”

She said they held each other as they waited for help. Simon asked his mother if they would make it out alive.

The mother and son, who were there with family vacationing from Switzerland, were taken to area hospitals and quickly released. They said all they have to show for their adventure are a few superficial burns and blisters. They are thankful for the way it ended — without serious damage.

The family has about a week left before they had back home. They said they will not be taking any chances with summer storms again.

via Woman struck by lightning, momentarily paralyzed.

Port St. Joe – Single red flags were flying at St. Joseph State Park when a man, his son, and his brother-in-law waded into the waist deep water. A short time later, the man would be dead, and his brother in law hospitalized.

Although names are being held pending the family’s notification, the drowning happened around noon, shortly after a 53-year-old man, his 21-year-old son, and his 49-year-old brother in law waded into the surf. Although the trio was in waist deep water, they got caught up in a rip current, and were dragged away from the shore.

A beach goer noticed that they were in trouble, and called 911. Then other beach goers, park rangers, and DEP Police all responded, pulling the men to shore, where they began to perform CPR on the 53-year-old man. From the beach, he was transported to Sacred Heart Hospital Port St. Joe, where he was pronounced dead at 1:10 p.m.

The son was treated and released, the man’s brother in law was airlifted to Bay Medical Center in Panama City, where he’s listed in stable condition.

via Rip current costs a man his life in Gulf County.

Lincoln Park — A 5-year-old boy was found dead this morning in his home in the 1500 block of Empire, believed to have been mauled to death by a dog or dogs in the home.

Police Chief Thomas Karnes said the mother of Kyle Holland called police around 9:30 a.m. today when she found her son dead in an upstairs bedroom. The mother, Karnes said, told police she put her son to bed around 10:30-11 p.m. Sunday. He is believed to have been deceased for several hours before police arrived. Authorities described his wounds as “significant.”

“It was sometime during the night that this had taken place,” Karnes said. “It appears the child was attacked by an animal.”

Authorities took two dogs from the home — a 35-pound Labrador mix and the other, a 90-pound male dog described by the owner as a husky/German shepherd mix. The dogs belong to the live-in boyfriend of the boy’s mother.

“It’s been described as a wolf hybrid, but the owner denies that,” Karnes said.

Police have ruled the death a homicide. An autopsy will be performed Tuesday. Anyone with information is asked to call police at (313) 381-1800.

via Dog attack suspected in 5-year-old boy’s death | detnews.com | The Detroit News.

GOLDEN GATE ESTATES — An 18-year-old Golden Gate Estates man, who lost his hand after an alligator attack in the Estates on Sunday night, may be getting back what he lost.

Timothy J. Delano, 18, was swimming in a drainage canal called “The Chrystal” near the intersection of Everglades Boulevard and 42nd Avenue when a 10-foot alligator bit his left hand off, said FWC spokeswoman Gabriella Ferraro.

Delano and two companions fled the canal and went to a gas station at Wilson and Golden Gate boulevards to call 911 at approximately 9:30 p.m., said Collier Emergency Medical Services spokeswoman Cherie Wilson-Watson.

Delano was airlifted to the Lee Memorial Hospital trauma center in Fort Myers by Collier EMS, officials said.

Ferraro said a trapper was able to find the attacking alligator last night. The gator was “harvested” and the victim’s hand was found in its stomach.

Attempts could be made to reattach the Delano’s hand, Ferraro said.

“Our goal is always to make a person whole again,” she said.

Delano is in good condition, reported Lee Memorial spokeswoman Pat Dolce.

Ferraro said people should recognize that any fresh water body in Florida could have alligators. She said those animals are most active at dawn and dusk.

via Alligator bites 18-year-old’s hand off; gator caught and hand recovered » Naples Daily News.

Standing next to his young daughter in waist-deep water off Fripp Island on Friday afternoon, Craig Morris felt something softly nudge his leg.

Seconds later, something pulled 6-year-old Ella under the water.

That “something” was a shark, he said.

The 37-year-old father of three quickly pulled the child to the surface.

That’s when he saw the blood and the 9-inch gash on the little girl’s leg, said Heidi Morris, Craig’s wife and Ella’s mother.

“He threw the boogie board they had been using (away) and squeezed her leg together,” said Heidi Morris of the 1 p.m. incident near the Fripp Island Beach Club. “Then he carried her up the beach and booked it to the fire house. There was lots of blood. You could see her bone.”

A Beaufort County paramedic and Fripp Island Fire officers treated Ella until an ambulance arrived and took her to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

It took 22 stitches to close the bite. Ella was released later that day, Heidi Morrris said.

The family, including sons Jackson, 8, and Parker, 9, of Marietta, Ga., were enjoying the final day of a week-long vacation when the incident occurred, she said. It was their first time vacationing on Fripp.

“We just loved it,” she said. “Earlier in the day, I had even posted pictures and a comment on my Facebook page that we were so happy with our experience. Later that day, I had to tell people about the shark.”

A RARE OCCURRENCE

Emergency room doctors told the family the shark was probably small, between four and five feet long, Heidi Morris said.

Mel Bell, director of the Office of Fisheries Management for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, agreed.

Ella’s wound looked like four smaller bites in a row, probably from a small shark. Typically, a swimmer would see the dorsal fin of a larger animal before it struck, Bell said.

“What you have with sharks is a test bite, to see what it is,” he said. “Then they usually take off, because you’re not a desired food item.”

DNR Sgt. Michael Paul Thomas said Tuesday there is no way to confirm whether the youngster’s wound was inflicted by a shark.

Because shark attacks are so rare, there is no protocol for reporting bites.

In South Carolina, the most recent shark attack that resulted in death was in 1883, Bell said.

“We’re still not sure what kind of shark it was,” he said.

In July 2006, an Ohio man said he was bitten by a shark at Hilton Head Island’s Singleton Beach. The wound required about a dozen stitches on his leg above his ankle. Authorities never confirmed the attack as the work of a shark, but the man said the teeth marks and puncture wounds were evidence enough for him.

In June of that year, a Missouri girl was bitten while playing in about two feet of water near the Breakers resort area of Coligny Beach.

Earlier in the month, a 14-year-old girl was bitten while swimming off Pawleys Island while a 21-year-old woman suffered a foot injury during a shark encounter off Kiawah Island.

Still, shark bites are relatively rare occurrences.

According to statistics compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, people are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Thomas said tracking the area shark population is not an exact science, but called the number robust.

“We always have a fairly large number of sharks in our waters,” Thomas said.

He attributed that to deep waters, healthy estuaries and plenty of fish to eat.

“Port Royal and St. Helena sounds are two deep areas for them to come into and spawn, and we have an abundance of fish,” Thomas said.

‘I’M NOT SCARED’

While the incident left her parents shaken, Ella was the picture of courage and composure.

Her mother was amazed at the child’s attitude in the emergency room.

“She was fine, acted like there was absolutely nothing wrong,” Heidi Morris said.

Since the encounter, the six-year-old has continued to be upbeat and chatty, her mother said.

“Yesterday (Monday) all day, she wore a shark T-shirt,” she said.

Her parents said they were happy there was no severe nerve or muscle damage. A doctor said Monday the youngster’s wound was healing well and she should be up and walking in a day or two, her mother said.

Minutes before the attack, Ella had been in the water alone, her mother said.

“We were lucky, because her dad came up and put his arms around her right before it happened,” she said. “I think she felt safe because her daddy was right there.”

“I’m not scared,” Ella told her mother after the attack.

She said something else, too.

“I’ll go back in the water.”

via Ga. girl ‘upbeat’ after being bitten by shark off Fripp Island | islandpacket.com.

Standing next to his young daughter in waist-deep water off Fripp Island on Friday afternoon, Craig Morris felt something softly nudge his leg.

Seconds later, something pulled 6-year-old Ella under the water.

That “something” was a shark, he said.

The 37-year-old father of three quickly pulled the child to the surface.

That’s when he saw the blood and the 9-inch gash on the little girl’s leg, said Heidi Morris, Craig’s wife and Ella’s mother.

“He threw the boogie board they had been using (away) and squeezed her leg together,” said Heidi Morris of the 1 p.m. incident near the Fripp Island Beach Club. “Then he carried her up the beach and booked it to the fire house. There was lots of blood. You could see her bone.”

A Beaufort County paramedic and Fripp Island Fire officers treated Ella until an ambulance arrived and took her to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

It took 22 stitches to close the bite. Ella was released later that day, Heidi Morrris said.

The family, including sons Jackson, 8, and Parker, 9, of Marietta, Ga., were enjoying the final day of a week-long vacation when the incident occurred, she said. It was their first time vacationing on Fripp.

“We just loved it,” she said. “Earlier in the day, I had even posted pictures and a comment on my Facebook page that we were so happy with our experience. Later that day, I had to tell people about the shark.”

A RARE OCCURRENCE

Emergency room doctors told the family the shark was probably small, between four and five feet long, Heidi Morris said.

Mel Bell, director of the Office of Fisheries Management for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, agreed.

Ella’s wound looked like four smaller bites in a row, probably from a small shark. Typically, a swimmer would see the dorsal fin of a larger animal before it struck, Bell said.

“What you have with sharks is a test bite, to see what it is,” he said. “Then they usually take off, because you’re not a desired food item.”

DNR Sgt. Michael Paul Thomas said Tuesday there is no way to confirm whether the youngster’s wound was inflicted by a shark.

Because shark attacks are so rare, there is no protocol for reporting bites.

In South Carolina, the most recent shark attack that resulted in death was in 1883, Bell said.

“We’re still not sure what kind of shark it was,” he said.

In July 2006, an Ohio man said he was bitten by a shark at Hilton Head Island’s Singleton Beach. The wound required about a dozen stitches on his leg above his ankle. Authorities never confirmed the attack as the work of a shark, but the man said the teeth marks and puncture wounds were evidence enough for him.

In June of that year, a Missouri girl was bitten while playing in about two feet of water near the Breakers resort area of Coligny Beach.

Earlier in the month, a 14-year-old girl was bitten while swimming off Pawleys Island while a 21-year-old woman suffered a foot injury during a shark encounter off Kiawah Island.

Still, shark bites are relatively rare occurrences.

According to statistics compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, people are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Thomas said tracking the area shark population is not an exact science, but called the number robust.

“We always have a fairly large number of sharks in our waters,” Thomas said.

He attributed that to deep waters, healthy estuaries and plenty of fish to eat.

“Port Royal and St. Helena sounds are two deep areas for them to come into and spawn, and we have an abundance of fish,” Thomas said.

‘I’M NOT SCARED’

While the incident left her parents shaken, Ella was the picture of courage and composure.

Her mother was amazed at the child’s attitude in the emergency room.

“She was fine, acted like there was absolutely nothing wrong,” Heidi Morris said.

Since the encounter, the six-year-old has continued to be upbeat and chatty, her mother said.

“Yesterday (Monday) all day, she wore a shark T-shirt,” she said.

Her parents said they were happy there was no severe nerve or muscle damage. A doctor said Monday the youngster’s wound was healing well and she should be up and walking in a day or two, her mother said.

Minutes before the attack, Ella had been in the water alone, her mother said.

“We were lucky, because her dad came up and put his arms around her right before it happened,” she said. “I think she felt safe because her daddy was right there.”

“I’m not scared,” Ella told her mother after the attack.

She said something else, too.

“I’ll go back in the water.”

via Ga. girl ‘upbeat’ after being bitten by shark off Fripp Island | islandpacket.com.

What they thought was a fatal spider bite was just a pimple.

In Pomona California this past weekend, a 13 year old teen was believed to have died a week after being bitten by a poisonous spider. There are only two known species of spider in the US that have an adequate quantity of venom that is potent enough to kill a human. Thus, making spider bite fatalities very low and an uncommon occurance.

Los Angeles county coroner’s officials have stated Tuesday that a spider bite did not kill the 13 year old Pomona teen who died on Sunday. The boy’s name has not yet been released to the public.

The boy died in a nearby hospital after going into cardiac arrest. There was a mysterious inflamed welp found on the boy’s body, which was thought to be a venomous spider bite. The bump was believed to be the cause of death and had been noticed a week or more before the incident.

Coroner Lt. Cheryl Macwillie said on Tuesday that there was no evidience of a spider bite and that the “bite” did not kill the boy. She continued to say that the alleged bite was actually a pimple.

An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday morning to determine the actual cause of death.

via OverTheLimit » Spider Bite Not Responsible for Pomona Teen’s Death.

A B.C. man is recovering from shock after narrowly avoiding a grizzly bear attack in Robson Valley, southeast of Prince George.

Leon Lorenz, a wildlife filmmaker from Dunster, had been following grizzly bear tracks and filming the animals feeding in the forested area for the last six weeks. Last Monday afternoon, he spotted a mother bear with her back to him about 23 metres away. He immediately put his camera down and started recording.

Lorenz said he had moved his camera slightly to get a better view. That was when the 400-pound bear caught his scent.

She sniffed the air, then turned around and looked right at him, he said. She quickly wheeled around a spruce tree about four metres away, and reappeared with her cub behind her, roaring and charging at high speed toward Lorenz.

The critical events after that, said Lorenz, occurred in about 20 seconds.

He remembers instinctively throwing his camera into wide-angle mode so it would capture all the action, before whipping out his handgun to fire a warning shot.

“I was blinded because she was zigzagging in and out between the trees — I didn’t know if she was going to come at me from the right or the left,” he said. “I had no target.”

Lorenz aimed high and pulled the trigger — right when the bear came crashing through the branches several feet away. Spooked, she turned back around with her cub and ran off, said Lorenz.

“If I had waited a split-second later, she would have had me,” he said. “She was a blur, going by me, she was so fast. Even if I had hit her, her momentum would have carried her forward. She was running on so much adrenalin, she would have made sure I was dead before she died, and her cub probably would have attacked, too.”

He said he has filmed this particular grizzly twice before — once at 18 metres apart, another at 45 metres.

Both times, he was able to stay out of sight so that even when the bear could smell him, she had no way of locating him.

Lorenz, a father of two sons, said he has encountered many bears before in his 19 years of filmmaking in the wild, but he has never been attacked by them. This was the first time he has had to use his handgun to protect himself. “God’s hand was on that gun,” he said. “The timing couldn’t have been more perfect — she was out to kill me.”

via Filmmaker fends off grizzly attack with handgun.

THE dad of a three-year-old attacked by a fox has described him as a “very brave little boy”. Relieved Sam Jermy said yesterday that son Jake was in “high spirits” after being bitten on the arm at a playgroup party. But the mum of twins Lola and Isabella Koupparis – who were mauled a fortnight ago – urged parents to start treating foxes as “a threat”.

Pauline, 41, said of the latest attack: “Pro-fox people will say he provoked it. However, it worries me that the fox was able to get close enough to the child.” Yesterday we revealed how Jake was attacked as he reached for a ball near a den under a playgroup’s building.

Staff had been aware that a family of foxes was living there for a year. But they did nothing about it as a local wildlife expert told them not to worry. The Dorothy Stringer Playgroup, in Brighton, East Sussex, was closed yesterday after pest controllers were called in following Saturday’s attack. Jake’s mum Jacqui and dad Sam, both 35, said they were relieved that the fox had not bitten or scratched the boy’s face and that his injuries were not likely to leave permanent scars. But they said they did want the fox to be destroyed. Jake is recovering at home. Sam said: “He’s doing well. It was a bit of a nightmare but he’s back on top form as if it never happened. “We feel it was not the fault of the fox or Jake but an unfortunate event.” A friend who was at the party said: “He’s doing OK but he’s got bite marks and lacerations to his arm.” The playgroup said: “We wish him a speedy recovery. We were aware of the foxes for some time. “The advice given by a local wildlife expert was that they did not pose a threat to people. “The nursery will remain closed until we’ve ensured the safety of our children and staff.” The incident came after nine-month-old Isabella and Lola were attacked as they slept in their cots by a fox that crept into their home in Hackney, East London, through an open patio door. The council then laid traps in the garden and caught six foxes – which were destroyed. They have now been removed.

via Print Friendly Page.

SNELVILLE, GA.– The Snelville, GA teen attacked by a shark on Jacksonville Beach is having a difficult recovery.

Monday she visited an Atlanta area doctor, after finding out Saturday her wound is infected. Foster had 29 stitches after the attack.

Foster was visiting her aunt’s house in Jacksonivlle Beach Thursday. She was boogie boarding with her boyfriend about 40 yards off our coast when a shark chomped down on her foot and leg.

Action News’ Kristen Cosby was the first reporter to interview Foster.

Monday, she shared her story on the CBS Early Show

“I could kind of feel all the teeth inside my skin,” said Foster. “Nothing short of freaking out. I was so scared.”

While Foster had swore off the ocean, her mom tells Action News she already has another beach trip planned in two weeks.

Doctors say it will be about six weeks before Foster is able to walk around again. Tuesday Foster is visiting a specialist to help heal her infection.

via Shark attack victim infected – Action News Jacksonville.