Two friends recounted the unexpected moment they both were bitten by a shark while vacationing in the Bahamas, as they recover from their injuries back home in the United States.
Rileigh Decker and Summer Layman had jumped off their friend’s boat in Bimini Bay together on Friday and were swimming back when the attack occurred.
“We were swimming to the ladder, and I kind of felt something nudge my leg,” Decker, 20, told “Good Morning America” from her hospital bed in Florida. “We kept swimming, and then I felt a tug on my leg. And I knew right then and there that I was bit.”
Decker said she had no strength in her leg and couldn’t get herself back on the boat, so her friend pulled her back up. Summer, who has a medical background, then guided their friend as he wrapped a towel around Decker’s leg and a rope above her knee for a tourniquet until first responders could arrive, they said.
“It was very scary,” an emotional Decker said. “The fear of like thinking, you know, you’re gonna die in the moment.”
The shark bit her tibia bone and Achilles tendon, she said.
American Rileigh Decker, 20, was injured in a shark attack in the Bahamas on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025.
Rileigh Decker & Summer Layman
Layman, 24, was also bitten on her foot, though didn’t realize it at first, she said.
“We both were panicking in that moment,” Layman said. “I didn’t realize I got bit until they started screaming that my foot was, like, shredded and there was just blood everywhere.”
The two were bitten by what they believe was a bull shark.
They both were initially treated at a local clinic before being airlifted to New Providence for further medical attention, the Royal Bahamas Police Force said. They returned to the U.S. on Saturday.
Decker has had two surgeries on her leg so far, and will likely need at least a third, her family said.
“All we can do now is just be very grateful that we’re still here because it could have ended very differently,” she said.
Layman said there “will be a road to recovery” for them.
“We’ll get through this together,” she said.
Rileigh Decker, 20, left, and Summer Lyman, 24, right, were airlifted to hospitals in Florida after they were attacked by a shark while swimming in Bimini Bay, Bahamas, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025.
Rileigh Decker & Summer Layman
The two friends also were thankful for their friends and family who were on the boat.
“If they weren’t there, we wouldn’t be here,” Decker said. “I’m just very grateful for all of them.”
Shark attacks are exceedingly rare. There were 47 unprovoked shark bites recorded around the world in 2024, according to yearly research conducted by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File.
In 2023, there was a lone, deadly shark attack in the Bahamas, according to the report. In that incident, a 44-year-old woman from Massachusetts was killed by a shark while paddleboarding near the back of the Sandals resort, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.