Narrator: What starts as a typical summer day,
Quickly turns into anything but.
Reporter: 17 year old paige winter was attacked by a shark at a north carolina beach.
Dr heithaus: The more people that are in the water, the more bites you tend to have.
Charlie: You could see pink on the water.
She was losing so much blood.
Dr heithaus: Where the prey is, the predators are gonna be.
Charlie: And there was two of them.
I didn't know that there was two sharks.
Narrator: With robin roberts
Robin: Paige, you've said that you're not mad at the shark.
Paige: "it's just a shark.
Like it's doing its shark thing. Don't be mad at it."
Narrator: Unlocking the mystery of an attack
Dr heithaus: You can tell a lot about a shark based on their jaws and their teeth.
Narrator: And an extraordinary teen.
Paige: Everybody's normal is different.
I'm not dead, I am very much alive.
Charlie: Oh, she's up!
I came down to wake you up.
Probably after the first month of us being here,
I haven't helped her do anything.
Narrator: Paige winter is a determined teenager.
Marcy: Being 17 is difficult anyway.
Being 17 in this world and getting your leg bitten off by a shark.
That's gotta be difficult.
And so she's going through it all.
Charlie: I remember sitting, paige was in her baby swing,
And she was swinging back and forth,
I had just gotten out of the marines, and I, I just looked at her.
And I knew it was my job and my responsibility
To take care of this little, this little baby.
Narrator: Marcy and charlie are no longer together,
But remain close in parenting paige and younger sister anais.
Best friend, kale, is a household regular.
Paige: Kale, like the vegetable.
He's the one I tell all of my feelings too.
Summer 2019 was looking very promising.
You know, school was about to end.
Narrator: The kids are making the most of paige's junior year.
Charlie: She was amped for the vacation to get coming up.
Paige: You know, everything was like, it was looking, it was looking pretty good.
You know, I was, I was excited, I was happy.
And then, you know, sometimes things happen.
It was on, uh, Sunday, June 2nd, and dad wanted to have like, a family day.
Charlie: Everybody needed to get out.
Everybody needed to just play
Narrator: The family heads to the beach.
Charlie: Fort macon has always been where I've gone to go to the beach.
Narrator: Fort macon state park is one of the most
Popular destinations along north carolina's crystal coast,
Located near the northern tip of the barrier island.
The shallow waters teem with cobia, sailfish and mackerel.
And if you're lucky, you might spot a sea turtle,
But they're not the only sea life to be found here.
Laura: On that area we can usually encounter sharks that like very shallow,
Murky waters and that would include obviously the bull sharks or the tigers
But also smaller blacktips, lemon sharks, even nurse sharks.
We love also areas where you know we can swim back
To shore easily so it's likely that
We are surrounded by one of the sharks every time we are in this type of waters.
Kale: We found, like, the perfect spot,
We all sat down and after that me and anais went
Over to paige and we were like begging her to get into a water with us.
And then she finally said yes.
And we were like, "yeah." and so we finally went in
And then, like, we just kept going out.
Paige: And so when we went like the water was, like,
You could not see anything in there.
Like it was really dark water.
It like rained really hard the night before so that made the water kind of brackish.
Laura: There's definitely gonna be more interest from the sharks
To go into these areas right after it has rained
And when there's more of that brackish water.
Narrator: Scientist laura garcia barcia studies shark toxicology
And the conservation biology of sharks.
Laura: Brackish water's very productive in terms of prey species
So sharks really do like getting prey from there.
Charlie: I would say on paige it was definitely up to chest deep.
On me, it was probably just to my belly button.
But we were a ways out, I would say we were out at least 50 yards.
Kale: It was really like shallow for a long time.
Charlie: I mean, you had to walk into the water,
And then we started noticing it getting shallow again, so we hit a sandbar,
And so we went past the sandbar and noticed that it started getting shallow
Again, so we got to a second sandbar and then we started down again.
We were, we were out there a little way,
But we were not further out than anybody else on that ocean was.
Paige: So, at that point it was me, anais and kale
And then we turn around and we see dad
Trying to sneak up on us and we're like laughing.
Kale: We were just like swimming around and we were all joking around and stuff.
As a joke, I was like, "hey, paige, let's play mermaids.
My name's katrina." and then I dove backwards into the water.
Paige: And he just, like, like, threw himself backwards,
Started splashing around so I decided to play along
And so I just, like, threw myself back.
And then, like, step on something.
And I'm like, "okay, that's dad. Like, whatever.
That's fine." real funny. And then I was like, "ow.
That kind of hurts." and then, I get pulled underwater.
Like, completely yoked.
Narrator: At the beach, we rarely see what lurks beneath the waters.
Dr heithaus: When it comes to sharks,
You're basically never gonna see those when you're swimming.
Narrator: Dr. Mike heithaus is a marine ecologist,
Specializing in predator prey interactions.
Dr heithaus: When the water is murky we can't see
Something far away and so we can't change our behavior, uh,
To get out of a situation that could be somewhat dangerous.
Laura: Shark attacks do not happen every day.
So the rare occasions where our shark encounters are not so good,
That's the ones we hear about the most unfortunately.
Narrator: But thousands of sharks patrol the us coastline every day.
Dr heithaus: So when we look at shark attack numbers,
The thing that drives most of it is how many people are in the water.
The more people that are in the water, the more bites you tend to have.
You tend to have more bites in the summer,
And that's when the, the people are there.
Narrator: For the most part, sharks and humans live in harmony,
But that's not always the case.
Kale: I saw paige get pushed out, like, pushed up, upwards.
I just heard anais say, "paige, what are you doing?"
Anais: I saw her get taken down by the shark and then I saw her blood come up.
Paige: Like, you, you're playing with a dog, with, like, a rope.
And you start shaking the rope, and the dog just goes, with his whole body.
Started doing that to my leg.
And then I was like, I don't know what to do.
Narrator: Why would a shark attack paige?
Dr heithaus: There may be some factors that could change
Your chances of running into a dangerous shark.
Narrator: Could it be attracted to her jewelry?
Paige: I have like 15 piercings.
I had my belly button ring and I had rings on.
So, I was quite accessorized, if you will.
Narrator: Or her bright hair?
Paige: I had just dyed my hair for pride month.
Narrator: Could time of day be a factor?
Dr heithaus: Time of day is something that affects when predators feed.
And can change your chances of running into a shark
Charlie: I wasn't watching them.
And liz, the woman I was dating, said, "charlie," and I turned and looked,
And she pointed and said, "shark, paige get her." and I turned
And paige, there was no, there was no paige.
It was just pink on the water.
Paige: And then I'm, like, holding my breath, shutting my eyes.
I'm underwater. I can't get up.
And I got up for a second, and then I heard screaming.
Like, gasped and got some sea water all up in there.
And I remember just like, "hold your breath, paige. Just hold it."
I didn't see my life flash before my eyes,
But I did see my future flash before my eyes.
I saw all of, like, my big dreams.
And I'm like don't let me die.
Paige winter is fighting for her life.
Paige: I put my hands in its mouth and tried to pull it off of me.
I was like, thinking of, like, a bear trap.
And the bear trap was, like, the shark's teeth, in my mind.
I'm just gonna try to, like, put my hands in there, and, like, see what happens.
And it, like, came off for a second.
It was like, what are you doing? Like, it spit my hands out.
It was like, "ew, gross." and then, like, put my leg back in its mouth.
Like this is, this is what I want.
Am I going to drown or am I going to bleed out?
I really don't want to die. So like, I start, like, praying.
Kale: It was just like pushing her up and then going back down
And I just remember seeing her face,
Like, because she wasn't screaming or anything.
And then I finally noticed like all the blood, it was just everywhere.
Narrator: Shark attacks in the waters off of north carolina are extremely
Rare leaving scientists scrambling for answers.
Dr heithaus: Most of the sharks that, uh, are in that area,
If they were to bite somebody it would be complete mistaken identity
And it would probably be they saw a hand flash
And they thought it was a little fish
'cause most of those species are eating very small prey.
Most sharks are probably scared of us or don't really worry about us at all.
I mean, we don't fit the menu profile at all.
Laura: We don't know for sure, if, you know,
Paige was thought as a next meal for one
Of the sharks or it was just simply bad luck.
Narrator: Several species could be responsible for this attack.
Dr heithaus: In the carolinas, there are quite a few different
Species of sharks that might go through that area.
And, you know, when you have an event like this,
You know, one of the important things is
To try to understand what species it was that, uh, caused an attack.
Narrator: One possible suspect: The infamous tiger shark,
Known for removing the limbs of its prey.
Dr heithaus: So, tiger sharks are a really big species.
They can grow to 15 feet and even bigger.
Narrator: And can weigh up to 2000 pounds.
Dr heithaus: They've got the mouth at the end of their jaws;
They have teeth that are curved
Like knives so they can actually cut through things in both directions.
So, they're built to eat big prey.
They can cut through sea turtle shells.
They're also found from kind of open oceans all the way into very shallow,
Coastal waters where people swim.
So, you can do forensic analysis of bites
To try to figure out what shark was responsible for an attack.
One thing you can do is look at the shape of the teeth that have made bite marks.
And that's a tooth from a tiger shark and you can see that it has a curved tooth.
So, if they drag that tooth either direction, it's going to saw,
And it has serrations on there that are a lot like a steak knife,
So that is built to cut through big prey.
And so, if somebody gets attacked,
Tiger sharks are usually one of the first species
That people wonder, could that be, be responsible?
Charlie: And I ran, I just started running.
It, it didn't take me long to get there, but I just got there.
Narrator: Firefighter paramedic charlie immediately
Knows his daughter is in grave danger.
Charlie: I just ran, I ran where the pink was moving
And I dove under and I grabbed paige with my left arm
And I brought her up. When I brought her up, there was resistance.
Paige: And then my dad, like, he gets me.
Charlie: I brought her up and there was a shark, this huge shark and it thrashed.
And I knew I had paige and it was pulling me,
And I had to anchor my feet down in the sand to stop me from moving out.
And I just started to hit it. I hit it, man.
I hit it so hard. So many times.
Paige: He's, like, is, like, holding me, and he's, like, putting all of his strength
Into, like, these punches. He's going at it.
Charlie: I remember thinking, "you're trying to take her. You can't have her.
I know you can't have her."
One of the hits I gave it, it must have been good enough where it got
Annoyed or something, and then let go.
Paige: I was scared when I was in the water because I was like,
Blood is free flowing.
Charlie: I was looking at the shark and this thing right in front of me.
It was looking at me sideways and it had this, this eye,
This black eye that was just staring and there was nothing in it.
It was just black.
Narrator: But how well could the shark see charlie?
Laura: It is often said that sharks have bad vision that is actually not true.
However, we obviously all know that in murky waters
It is hard to see both for us and for sharks.
Narrator: According to paige and kale, the water that June day was murky.
Laura: But sharks have a system called ampullae
Of lorenzini that allows for them to sense
Their surroundings and be very aware of what's moving right in front of them
Even if visibility is very poor.
Narrator: A sixth sense, ampullae of lorenzini are a series of sensors
On the underside of a shark's head.
They appear as pores on the surface of the skin
That lead to jelly-filled tubes which detect
Electrical fields created by their prey.
Dr heithaus: And so as they get closer to their prey, even if they can't see it,
They can detect exactly where it is based on that, uh, electric field it gives off.
And so, you know, a shark can use that to zero in.
Often though they, you know, that's kind of the last sense that they engage.
At further distances they're gonna be using hearing, they're gonna be using smell,
They're gonna use the vibrations in the water.
And so they kind of bring new sensory systems
Online as they get closer and that electric
Field is something they use at their last second.
Narrator: Investigators explore what else could have contributed to the attack.
The family was in the water at noon.
And although predators tend to be more active at dawn or dusk,
Mid-day attacks are not unheard of.
Dr heithaus: There's more to a shark attack than sharks being active.
It's also how many people are in the water.
And so if you think about when people get in, that tends to be when it's warmer,
So around midday and in the afternoon.
Narrator: And the question of what type of shark attacked paige remains.
In addition to the tiger shark, the bull shark makes the list of suspects.
Dr heithaus: They don't grow to be super long, you know,
Maybe nine and a half feet but they are super stocky
Have, uh, really big heads and mouths
And also have these triangular teeth
So they can grab onto and cut through big prey.
Narrator: They have about 50 functional teeth at a time,
And lurking behind them are 5, 6 rows of replacement teeth awaiting their turn.
Dr heithaus: They don't get as big as tiger sharks or white sharks,
But they eat relatively big prey for their size.
So, you know, a seven, eight-foot bull shark
Might actually attack a six-foot long dolphin.
And so that is one of the reasons that they're dangerous to people.
Narrator: So, could a bull shark be responsible
For paige's life threatening injuries?
As charlie struggles to bring paige ashore,
There's more in the ocean than he originally thought.
Charlie: So, I'm carrying her like this.
And I turned and when I turned that shark was still there.
It was an arm's length behind me in waist deep water.
And there was two of them.
I didn't know that there was two sharks.
Two sharks.
I was terrified of losing paige.
Narrator: On a beach off the coast of north carolina,
Father charlie winter is an epic race
To save the life of his daughter paige.
Charlie: The first thing I was thinking about was
Stop the bleeding and get her back to shore.
We were a long way out.
Woman: 911, come on, come on, come on.
Narrator: Eyewitnesses say they see not one, but two, sharks in the water.
As charlie runs with a wounded paige in his arms.
Dr heithaus: We're really just scratching the surface of knowing when,
Why, how these sharks, uh, form groups or maybe hunt in pairs
Narrator: Information that could help determine
What species attacked paige.
Laura: Some sharks species are more social than others
And for example we know that scallop
Hammerheads in big groups out in the open ocean.
We know that lemon sharks can have individual
Sharks that they come across several times a day.
So it's what we would say like our friends, right?
Dr heithaus: One of the big group living sharks are the blacktip sharks.
Every year we have schools of thousands
Of blacktip sharks that move through georgia and into the carolinas.
Narrator: However, these 'social' sharks can be ruled out
Based on physical characteristics.
Laura: We think it was definitely not,
Uh, blacktip shark, they're usually smaller.
And the same could be said for lemon sharks.
If it was a hammerhead someone would have definitely
Seen the different shape of the head. It's very distinctive.
Narrator: Can sharks be both swimming pals and hunting partners?
The answer, may not be that simple.
Laura: If in fact there were two sharks it doesn't necessarily mean
They were hunting together.
Murky waters are very productive areas where we can find several sharks
Of the same species, so the moment there was activity one of the other
Sharks could have come closer to check out what was going on.
It will try to see if there's food for them too.
Dr heithaus: I have seen it in some areas where there are lots of bull sharks.
You know, a wounded fish, I've seen four bull sharks
Come in at same time and just go bang, bang,
And you have 100 pound fish that's gone in 10 seconds.
Narrator: Which means the big sharks can't be ruled out as culprits,
Even if they're known to be loners.
Dr heithaus: White sharks, tiger sharks, and bull sharks.
Most of these big sharks hunt primarily alone.
But sometimes you'll see multiple sharks in one area attack the same prey.
Narrator: Though paige was attacked in shallow water,
It was definitely a big shark.
Dr heithaus: One thing people tend to think of
Is that big sharks must be in deep offshore waters,
When in fact, there are some species where the big sharks
Come into the shallows. It is not uncommon at all.
Bull sharks can get in along those coasts and they can handle fresh water.
That starts to say, probably a bull shark.
Narrator: Back at the beach, there's good news for charlie.
He manages to get out of reach of the predators behind him.
His attention fully on paige.
Kale: I can remember her being laid down on the beach
And that's when I first saw her hand.
Charlie: It was all exposed and everything.
Every nerve was just totally cut.
And that's when I started telling her, I love you.
Probably said it 50 times. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Kale: The paramedics arrived.
James: What we saw was very traumatic.
Her entire thigh was missing pretty much from the top of her knee to her pelvic area.
It was definitely the most traumatic injury I've seen so far.
Narrator: Paige is rushed to an ambulance with her dad by her side.
Charlie: She was incredibly calm for what she was going through.
She was an absolute champ.
Ha. And that's when paige started being paige a little bit.
"listen, you know sharks are good people."
Paige: I was like, "don't be mad at that shark. It's just a shark.
Like it's doing its shark thing."
Charlie: I was kinda staring at her like, what are you talking about?
What are you talking about right now?
You know, who does that? She's awfully forgiving.
The helicopter crew showed up. I told paige, I loved her.
And they put her in.
And I started driving to greenville very quickly.
The surgery was for four hours five hours something
Marcy: Charlie and I sat there and waiting and wondering.
The social worker opens the door and comes in with a surgeon
Right behind her and, yeah, your heart drops in that moment.
But the bad news she had was that they were going to have to amputate paige's leg.
Charlie: And I just broke down. You knew it was coming.
You knew it was going to happen.
But to hear them say that they have to take your kid's leg. God.
Narrator: Paige suffers the loss of her left leg at the thigh.
Two fingers, and nerve damage in her hands
Paige: Hey.
Narrator: Enduring a series of operations, she exceeds everyone's expectations.
Narrator: Each day a step closer to recovery.
Her sense of humor and forgiveness for the shark.
Charlie: Whatcha doin' there? Narrator: Unwavering.
Paige: It's tough, but it doesn't have to stay tough.
Like, what happened to me was a bad situation,
But I can build from that and I can rise.
Narrator: While paige heals from her traumatic experience,
She's still looking for answers.
Paige: Some questions I do have. "what ifs?"
Like, "what if this happened instead of this?
What if we did this and not this?"
To not get bit by a shark.
Dr heithaus: Every so often, at the wrong time with the wrong shark,
You know, bad things can happen.
Where the prey is, the predators are gonna be.
A shark attacks a teen along the north carolina coast.
Paige winter pulls through the devastating encounter,
But faces a long recovery without her leg and part of her hand.
Dr toschlog: There was an acceptance of what had happened to her, but also a,
A clear understanding in, in her mind that she was gonna survive.
Narrator: But the questions linger, what type of shark was it and why paige?
Paige: Some questions I do have, because I have heard that,
Like, reflective things in the water
Might, um, like, seem like fish gills
So I thought maybe my belly button ring or my rings or my bracelets or whatever
Would maybe attract a shark.
Hair dye run-off. Stuff like that.
Those are, you know, just some questions.
Dr heithaus: Some people think that, you know,
Wearing jewelry might cause an attack.
But, you know, a big shark isn't going to see
A little flash like that and zero in.
You know, sharks have great vision, but I don't think
That any of the, uh, colored hair, belly ring.
I mean, those sharks probably sensed her
Well before they would've seen any of those things.
Paige: We were splishing and splashing around
And I'm wondering if that had anything to do with it.
Dr heithaus: Sharks do have good hearing, so they can hear splashing,
But there's splashing going on all the time.
There's just no way to know if that contributed to, to this event.
Narrator: So far none of the details shed light on the attack,
But shark travel patterns could be key.
Dr heithaus: That's a satellite tag.
So, what this does is that sits on the dorsal fin of a shark.
So, this is one way we can track sharks.
We use tags like this to figure out where sharks are going.
That helps us kind of narrow down
What species might be responsible for an attack.
Laura: A lot of the sharks that are more tropical species
Prefer warmer waters, so to go north to the, like, places like north carolina,
They wait until there's those summer months
Of warmer waters in those shallow areas.
Dr heithaus: We know, for example, that bull sharks
And tiger sharks are perfectly at home coming into shallow waters.
Narrator: Fitting with paige in waist deep waters.
Another factor: It rained the day before.
Dr heithaus: Rain the day before,
You're getting more fresh water coming into the oceans.
That can tilt things towards predators being
More present in those turbid waters hunting.
The most likely species would be a tiger shark or a bull shark.
Narrator: A theory that matches paige's injuries.
Dr heithaus: The nature of her injuries is such
That that's really gonna only be a bull shark
Or a tiger shark that could cause those
Because their teeth being able to inflict those kinds of wounds.
Narrator: A simple map could give the greatest insight of all.
Tiger or bull?
Dr heithaus: Okay, so this is the area where paige was attacked in north carolina.
Up in these areas where you get fresh water coming in.
Those are the kind of places that bull sharks hang out.
And we know scientists working in this area
Have caught really big bull sharks.
When you put that together with the injuries that paige had,
There's no question this was a bull shark.
Most of the time, they're going to ignore people.
But just unfortunately, in this situation, they didn't.
I mean, it's still really just wrong place, wrong time.
I don't think there's anything I can suggest that they could've done differently,
Uh, to avoid the attack,
Because you didn't necessarily do anything wrong.
Anchor: The horrible shark attack off a north carolina beach.
Reporter: 17 year old paige winter lost her leg and two fingers.
No doubt a lot of people are thinking about that girl.
Narrator: Paige's story makes headlines as an inspirational survivor.
Refusing to be angry.
Paige: Hello! Officer: Hey, how are you?
Paige: I'm good.
Robin: No? Really!
Charlie: Hi. How are you? How are you? Good to meet you.
Robin: It's good to see you. I've been wanting to see this hair up close.
You ready to do it?
Paige: Uh-hmm. Robin: Let's do it!
Robin: What has been the most difficult time?
Paige: Nothing's gonna be the same ever again.
Like, I'm still paigey. Just a little different.
Robin: The shark didn't touch your spirit. Paige: It did not.
Robin: Paige, you've said that you're not mad at the shark.
Paige: I didn't do something directly to the shark.
But I was in his water. You know? That's his house.
They're just like, like, they're not bad.
They're not bad. And they're cool.
But this, um, situation has urged me to learn more about sharks.
Narrator: Paige continues to defy expectations.
A month after her accident returning home.
Paige: There you go. Awesome.
Narrator: And vowing to walk again with a new prosthetic leg.
Paige: Word. Oh, she's cute! Charlie: Oh, there it is!
Paige: Ooh, it's a nike too! Charlie: Uh-hmm.
Paige: We stuntin and confrontin'!
Let's put it on! I cannot wait.
Therapist: Are you ready? Paige: Uh-hmm.
Therapist: All right. Come on.
Charlie: That's it. Paige: Oh, there we go.
Therapist: Paige. Charlie: That's it girl. That's it. That's it.
Therapist: Oh, that was a good one.
Charlie: That's it. Perfect! Paige: Get out of my way.
Therapist: Yeah. You would.
Charlie: She's walking,
That was awesome.
Paige: You haven't seen me step like that in a month.
Therapist: No, man.
Mike: What you are witnessing guys does not happen.
Mike: You just don't see a patient just startin' on a prosthetic,
And let go of rails and walk like this.
She's, she's amazing. Charlie: Uh-hmm.
Mike: Absolutely amazing.
Charlie: Come on over this way. Watch, watch the curb.
Paige: I know. Charlie: All right.
Mike: She is fearless. Paige: Down with the bad.
Narrator: Fearless and ready to face the reality of what happened to her.
Paige: This is freakin cool.
Hey, you.
It's beautiful in here. It's like surreal to be here.
(laughs)
Oh, big fella. I wanna know what's he's been through.
I think eventually I'm going to go back to the beach at some point.
Just because I got bit by a shark doesn't really mean
That I can't still enjoy sharks.
One bad encounter with them isn't gonna make me dislike them.
Dr heithaus: Being attacked by a shark is not something
That you should worry too much about.
But, you know, if you have big sharks, people in the same area,
Then there's the potential for something to happen.
Reporter: Tonight, yet another shark attack on our coast.
This is the third reported shark bite
Off the coast of north carolina just this month.
Of a shark attack on north carolina shores
During the summer of 2019, but she wasn't the last.
Reporter: Tonight, yet another shark attack on our coast.
Reporter: This is the third reported shark bite
Off the coast of north carolina just this month.
Dr heithaus: That time of year in June,
That is when you get some of the sharks that have
Been down south moving further and further north.
Because they like to find the water temperature that's just right,
And there tends to be more food as you move further north.
Narrator: While the injuries sustained from these other attacks were
Non-life threatening, should beach goers be concerned?
Dr heithaus: There's variation in the number of attacks
From month to month and year to year.
Some of that's driven by how many people are in the water.
Some is just driven by random chance.
Narrator: One year after the attack, paige and charlie take a huge step for their healing.
Paige: I do think about the beach, like, every day, like, what happened.
Charlie: It's a fear. I knew I had to get to the beach.
Paige: Are we going to get up close?
Charlie: Yeah. Paige: Ah.
I suppose I'm not too excited about that part.
Charlie: There's the waves. Paige: It's not too bad.
Charlie: Uh, and then I, I took a step back, and it
Was just paige out there in the water.
I didn't like seeing her in the water by herself, even being ankle-deep.
Paige: Yeah.
I forgot how much I liked beach sounds.
I've been to the beach about a trillion times
And I always had a great time except for that one time.
I would like to be an environmental activist, first and foremost.
Environmental activism is really important to me.
It should be taken more seriously that our environment
And the animals dwelling in it are declining.
Laura: There's a lot of research being done on sharks encounters,
And the more we understand,
The easier it will be to try to prevent these tragedies from happening in the future.
Narrator: To learn about current shark research,
Dr. Heithaus and laura invite paige and charlie
To join them on an upcoming shark tagging expedition.
Laura: Paige, how are you?
Paige: I'm good, how are you? Good.
Laura: You're gonna help me build the gear.
Paige: Okay. Laura: Okay.
So the first thing we are going to do is put the crimps in here.
Paige: Uh-hmm. Laura: So, if you wanna grab another crimp from there.
Paige: Okay. Laura: Paige and charlie will learn a lot about
How pollution enters our oceans and how that can affect
Our healthy ecosystems and the animals that live in it.
Paige: It's kind of cool that I get to go
Learn more about these fun, fun friends.
So they never stop making teeth.
Laura: No teeth. Paige: Ah, what silly creatures!
Charlie: I'm a little nervous for paige.
To come back into close contact like that with no glass between you,
This is something that she wants to do. Laura: All right.
I think it's just super exciting to be able to get her out
In the field to foster that respect and love for sharks that she has.
Your hook for tomorrow.
Dr heithaus: The thing about going out on the water,
Is you never know exactly what you're gonna see
'cause there's so many species we could run into.
Narrator: The sharks are only one fear to conquer.
Paige: I've never been on a boat.
I am really nervous because I don't think my balance
Is going to be that on point with all the waves and stuff.
My first, like, thought was, "oh my god, we're actually doing this, right?"
Charlie: I'd like to think getting onto a boat
And seeing a shark face to face like that.
It could be just another, another part of the, the healing journey.
Narrator: Dr. Heithaus and laura drop 6 baited
Lines in a perimeter from their research boat.
Dr heithaus: A lot of the work that we do is focused
On trying to understand how important sharks are
For their ecosystems, and what's gonna happen if we remove them.
That's something we have to worry about,
Because it looks like we're removing almost 100
Million sharks from the oceans every year.
And their populations can't take that.
We have to learn a lot about how the sharks navigate their environment,
How they interact with their prey, and then how that affects the wider ecosystem.
Charlie: How lucky were we to have gotten away
With in pursuit with the way it was attacking?
And what could we have done differently?
Dr heithaus: I mean, honestly, there's nothing you did wrong.
It's not an exact science when it comes to shark attacks, I'm afraid,
Is that it was just really unfortunate timing, wrong place, wrong time.
Charlie: I needed to hear a shark expert say "don't blame yourself." there was nothing
Different that I could have done different.
There was nothing else I could have done.
Paige: Even though, like, what happened to me is very rare,
I do really think that maybe some of these answers
Can help my dad just kind of go to sleep at night.
Laura: We're going to be circling through the buoys and changing the bait.
Charlie: We'll get something. We'll get something.
Laura: So every 45 minutes we check every single line
And if there is no shark or no bait,
We put a bait again to try to get a shark charlie: We need a shark.
Paige: Once we get to the last one.
Laura: We'll go back to the first one.
Charlie: After you got to a certain point,
You could feel if there was something on that line or not.
I feel my something.
Dr heithaus: Okay. Charlie: Something's on! Dr heithaus: Hey.
Charlie: You've got this huge shark just coming right up at you.
Paige: Oh, be careful, dad. Oh, dad, be careful!
Charlie: I feel something dr heithaus: Okay.
Charlie: Something's on! Dr heithaus: Hey.
Charlie: You know, when I felt the, the tension on the line, like,
Ooh, we got something here.
That's a little, that's a little nerve wrecking.
Laura: Charlie, want to help? Charlie: Yeah. Laura: Oh, my god.
Dr heithaus: There, we got it.
Paige: Oh, be careful, dad! Oh, dad, be careful!
Dr heithaus: Looks like a nurse shark.
This is the most common shark here in these coastal waters of florida.
Laura: I'm going to be grabbing it. Paige: Uh-huh.
Laura: But if you want to with your right hand,
Grab the line so you'd feel how strong it is. Paige: Okay.
Laura: You can, but I'm gonna be grabbing it too.
I'm not gonna let go. All right. Yeah.
'cause I would probably fall. In between mine, put your hands.
Paige: In between? Laura: Yeah. Paige: Okay.
Laura: So it's gonna pull down at some point. Oh, god. Wow.
It's a big shark so, you know, they have a lot of strength,
And this one is pretty calm so it's not pulling.
Paige: I said, "whoa, that's awesome." and he was very calm.
That was a very calm shark.
I've never seen a shark this calm, up close and there it is, right there.
Narrator: Nurse sharks, slow-moving bottom-dwellers,
And for the most part, harmless to humans.
Dr heithaus: Laura's collecting samples,
To see how much mercury they're taking into their body.
Laura: We first measure it to know how large it is,
We determine the sex, whether it's,
You know, male or female and then we will tag it, we give each shark a unique id.
Dr heithaus: So, if anyone catches them or we catch them later,
We can see how big they are or how big they've grown.
And we can also see where they've moved
Charlie: Watching a shark being brought up from
The depths where there's nothing and then you just see it coming up,
That was pretty, that was pretty intense.
Paige: It was a reasonable reaction for me to, like,
Be right there with a shark and a shark be like, "whoa, what up?"
Dr heithaus: Anybody wants to? Laura: Charlie.
Dr heithaus: Charlie, you want to touch it?
Paige: You be so careful, though
Charlie: Believe me. But, oh, aren't they like gritty sand?
Laura: Yeah. It's exactly like sand.
Charlie: Me touching a shark wasn't bad at all.
Paige: Is it smooth one way? Laura: Not this one.
Paige: Okay. Laura: No.
Charlie: This time, it was a good experience.
And the shark didn't seem to mind too much.
Laura: It's smoother one way.
Dr heithaus: Compared, compared to a lot of other sharks,
They are fairly smooth. Laura: Okay.
Dr heithaus:I I always wear long sleeves because if you cross a line
Of sharks the wrong way, you get a scrape, we call it shark burn.
Paige: I have one of those!
I'm just looking but I'm nervous to touch it, because if I get on the ground,
I'm afraid that I'm going to fall into the water.
Even though I really like, I love nurse sharks so much, I think they're so neat.
I like his whiskers.
I think once I get more used to my prosthetic leg and gain more skills with it,
I'd be super open to go and actually touch a shark on another expedition.
Seeing the first shark was super memorable.
Like, I know it's going to be like a core memory.
Charlie: Seeing the shark, and seeing how paige was and seeing her smiling,
I know she was enjoying that moment.
But then, just seeing how they were, and just totally calm and peaceful and,
And then being released and they just glide right back down.
Paige: Bye. Laura: And you see it swim away?
Charlie: Wow. It's going right down.
Dr heithaus: That's the way we like to do it.
Charlie: That's awesome.
Paige: And that was the perfect nurse shark.
Dr heithaus: And then (inaudible) free. Freebie.
Paige: A lot of people are fed myths about sharks.
Narrator: From a 2019 study, experts say that you're more
Likely to die taking a selfie than being bitten by a shark.
Laura: Universities, like, having very important shark labs doing, like,
World-renowned research.
And I hope that in the future years,
We just get to see more women just, like, managing the labs
Paige: By having just even, like, a tiny bit of basic knowledge
About sharks could help me be a better shark advocate.
Through this whole experience, I have a whole new outlook on life.
We're gonna help save the ocean and marine life.
Laura: Major professors the age of mike. Paige: Uh-hmm.
Laura: Are guys in marine science but people my age are mostly women doing this work
Which is very, very cool.
Charlie: This whole experience has opened paige up.
This made her confront everything that was going on in her life,
And then moving beyond it, and moving past it, and moving past it quickly.
Robin: Do you look at life differently?
Paige: I do think that I have discovered a little bit more
Of an inner strength now that I'm out and about in the world.
(cheering)
When I got hurt, I said, "sharks are still good people,"
Because they're like still good people.
And I still feel that way because they're just
Animals in their environment doing their best.
Much like how a person is doing.
We're all doing our best in our environment
Even if we have a bad day sometimes.
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