An Instagram model had a brush with death after her decision to swim with sharks nearly cost her an arm and a leg… quite literally.
Internet fame, or as I like to call it – social media clout, is a funny thing. Whether social media influencers want to admit it or not, the interaction they get off of Instagram is valuable to them. Maybe because it comes with a sense of validation.
But that’s the problem with Instagram clout, it’s not actually that tangible, is it? You can’t put it into a physical manifestation like money or health… or your life! Hopefully, it’s a lesson Katarina Zarutskie will have learnt after she got caught in a precarious situation with some nurse sharks.
The 19-year-old, who has been modelling for five years, is a frequent jet-setter and blogs about her experiences to her 13,000 followers.
While it is indeed a glamorous lifestyle, I wouldn’t blame her if she leaves out her encounter with a nurse shark from her travel blog. During a recent trip to the Bahamas with her boyfriend and his family, she decided to take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to swim with some nurse sharks… and take a picture for the ‘gram – because you know, social media clout.
While her boyfriend’s parents weren’t sure about her doing it, she went in anyway. Furthermore, there were other people swimming with the nurse sharks already.
For a while everything seemed fine as she floated in the sea… then all of a sudden things went badly wrong.
Speaking to Buzzfeed, Katarina said:
I leaned back, and then that shark he came and he bit down on my arm and pulled me under.
Damn, it’s like a scene out of Jaws. If it was me in this situation, I would’ve probably been freaking out. But credit to young Katarina, she kept her cool and was able to pry her arm out of the shark’s vice-like grip.
She immediately got out, while keeping her bloodied wrist out of the water, because as you should know, when sharks sense blood, they’ll make a beeline to the source. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what comes next.
While she managed to make it back safely to land, she didn’t leave unscathed as the nurse shark left her with a nasty bite mark on her arm.
Despite the harrowing experience, Katrina doesn’t blame the shark. On Instagram she wrote:
It’s honestly a crazy accident and it definitely could have happened to anyone. I love the ocean and all animals and the last thing I would want to do is harm them in any way!
While nurse sharks are relatively harmless and relaxed, they are listed fourth for shark bites on humans. This is possibly due to the lax behaviour displayed by the humans who encounter them.
Nurse sharks are opportunistic predators who mainly hunt small fish, such as stingrays, and invertebrates, like crustaceans, molluscs, tunicates.
Katrina can count herself lucky it wasn’t one of the big boys of the shark family who wanted a piece of her arm.
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