SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) – Maria Korcsmaros was swimming just off the Southern California coast to get ready for her summer triathlon when something big gripped her side and then let go.
She knew immediately she had been bit.
The normally choppy water around her grew still and turned red with blood, Korcsmaros, a 52-year-old fitness instructor, recalled lifeguards telling her later after they pulled her from the ocean and whisked her to safety.
“I instantly knew it was some kind of fish, and probably a big fish, like a shark,” she told reporters from her bed at Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana on Tuesday, nine days after the attack off the coast in Corona del Mar.
“It felt like a big bite and then it let go. And then I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got to get out of here,’ ” she said.