"God Had His Hand in This": EMT Brother Saves Sister's Life from Brutal Shark Attack
Rhett Willingham, a firefighter and EMT, is used to fighting fires — not sharks.
But thanks to Rhett and with glory to God, his sister Addison Bethea, 17, can now add “survived a shark attack” to her resume.
Addison was scalloping off Keaton Beach in Florida last June when a 9-foot shark attacked her, according to The Epoch Times.
First, Addison attempted to fight off the aggressive shark.
She told CNN, “I couldn’t get around to punch it in the nose. So then I just started socking it in the face, then I poked its eyes, then I tried to latch it off with my fingers, and then it bit my hand.”
Addison screamed for help and Rhett sprang into action.
“I heard her make a noise, almost like something scared her,” he said. “I sat up and looked and didn’t see her. Then she came up from the water and I saw the shark and the blood and all that, then I swam over there and got [the shark] off.”
Rhett then pulled his sister into the boat, applied a tourniquet to quell the bleeding and sped back to shore.
“She suffered a devastating injury to her upper right leg, including the loss of her quadriceps,” according to The Epoch Times.
“Her right leg was amputated just above the knee, and preserved muscular tissue and skin from the lower leg were wrapped around her femur in preparation for a prosthesis.”
Despite the attack and the injuries, the family credits God with Addison’s survival. Her brother, Rhett, was nearby, heard her cries for help, and is a firefighter/EMT.
The man who assisted with getting Addison into a boat, Christopher Leggett, and the owner of the boat, Domenic Scorpio, are both men of faith who were in the right place at the right time, by God’s grace.
“God had his hand in this from the moment Addison was bitten by the shark,” Addison’s mother Michelle Murphy said. “We know it’s a miracle she is alive because when the shark bit her it got her femoral artery in her right leg; most people die within minutes from that type of injury.”
The family has set up a Facebook Page for people supporting Addison’s recovery called “Fight Like Addison.”
A GoFundMe page created to help with Addison’s medical expenses including rehabilitation and prosthesis has raised over $90,000 of its $125,000 goal.
Addison’s fighting spirit is undeterred.
She told reporters that “she plans to get back in the water once she has recovered.”
“I mean, a shark has always been there, it just happened to attack me that day,” she said in an interview. “I lived 17 years without a shark attack. I’m fine with going back.”
Fight like Addison, indeed.
