Mother Loses Arm in Shark Attack While Snorkeling

While snorkeling on vacation in the Bahamas, a North Carolina woman survived a terrifying ordeal when she encountered the one creature most swimmers never hope to see up close: a shark. Tiffany Johnson, 32, was snorkeling with her husband, reports the NY Daily News, when she felt something bump her from behind. When she turned around, she saw what is believed to be a tiger shark, which promptly clamped onto her limb, biting off part of the mother of three’s arm.

“He had my whole arm in his mouth, and he was just floating there staring at me,” she says in an interview with WSOC. Her husband jumped into the water to help after hearing her screams. "I kept trying to yank my hand back and the last time I yanked he had cut it clean off so I was able to actually get free," she says of the June 2 ordeal. A GoFundMe page has raised more than $18,000 to help with Johnson's medical expenses. (More shark attack stories.)