Girl, 6, attacked by shark at open-top aquarium in Chinese shopping mall
Child has deep gashes and multiple fractures after shark jumped up and snapped at her hand, according to local media
A young girl was left with deep gashes and multiple fractures to her hand after she was bitten by a shark in an open-top aquarium at a shopping mall in southwest China.
The six-year-old, identified only as Xiao Li, had been looking at sharks in the aquarium with her grandmother and aunt on Tuesday when one of them jumped up and snapped at her hand, according to news website Colourful Guizhou.
The mall, in the city of Guiyang, Guizhou province, was not named in the report on Thursday.
Her right hand had fractures in nine places and deep wounds, the report said. Photos online showed the girl’s bloodied hand with gashes up to 5cm (2 inches) long. The doctor who treated the girl told the news website that she may need surgery if her hand did not heal well.
A spokesman for the Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital told the South China Morning Post the doctor who had treated the girl was not available for comment on Friday.
Her mother, surnamed Wang, told Pear Video in an interview that Xiao Li had not put her hand in the tank. “She did lean against the aquarium glass,” Wang says in the video. “But she didn’t reach into the water – the shark just jumped out of the water and attacked her.”