Florida woman Natalie Branda bitten by shark in murky water during friend’s birthday party receives 14 stitches

A Florida woman attacked by a shark while swimming during a friend’s birthday celebration on Florida’s Gulf Coast escaped the incident with just 14 stitches.

Natalie Branda, 26, was swimming in murky waters at St. Pete’s Pier near St. Petersburg when she suddenly felt pressure around her upper thigh after dropping a float in the water.

“I just felt pressure, and it released, and I was like: ‘I got bit!’” she told Fox 13 Tampa Bay. “I swam the fastest I ever swam to the boat.”

The wounds stretched from her buttocks to her belly button.

After Branda clambered back onto the boat, her friends immediately applied pressure to her wound and rush back to the dock while they called emergency services.

Branda could only see her stomach at the time and friends reassured her “it’s not that bad.”

“Then I turned around and everyone was like: ‘Oh, my God,’” Branda recounted.

The hospital confirmed the wounds were indeed from a shark bite when they stitched her up.

“It’s not very common that people experience that and walk away with just some stitches,” her friend Allie Mucks told the local outlet.

Branda said she still plans on going back into the water but will take better precautions next time, including steering clear of murky water.

“I don’t know if I’ll do what we did last time. The water was kind of murky. It was the perfect cocktail for the perfect storm,” Branda said. “We are invading their home. It sucks that this happened, but when you’re entering and being with large creatures in their home, you have to respect them.

“I’ll probably get back in the water, but I need to recover first.” 

Two days after Branda was attacked, Brandon Boncore, 22, of Oviedo, was bitten while coming in from his last surf at New Smyrna Beach – about 160 miles east on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.

Boncore was surfing near an inlet on Monday when he fell off his board and was bitten on his left ankle. He said he didn’t see his attacker, but admitted he saw sharks in the area.

“I felt something kind of pulling me down. It hurt for sure, but not as bad as you would think,” he told Fox 35 Orlando.

“I got lucky, to be honest with you,” he said. “It gave me a little love bite.”

He managed to paddle back to shore, where he flagged down a fellow surfer — who is also a paramedic — to help him.

After Boncore was brought to a nearby hospital, a shark tooth was surgically removed from his leg.

Two other people were bitten by sharks at the same beach last month, according to Volusia County Beach Safety officials.

Florida is the shark bite capital of the world, with the most happening in Volusia County.

Like Banda, Boncore said the bite won’t keep him out of the water.

“I’m definitely going back in,” he said. “I definitely knew the risks, and unfortunately it was me, but the chances of it happening to someone else is very, very rare.”