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American Morning

8-Year-Old Florida Boy Remains Critical Following Shark Attack

Aired July 09, 2001 - 09:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And now the story of an 8-year-old boy who is fighting for his life. This boy was attacked by a shark this weekend in Florida, and he remains in critical condition today. The boy's arm was bitten off in the attack. It has been, though, reattached, but doctors say Jessie Arbogast still has a long way to go.

CNN's Brian Cabell is live from Pensacola, Florida, with more on the story -- Brian.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning - Daryn.

This was something close to a miracle -- that's what we have been told by a couple of officials here in the last hour -- the first aid paramedic who was one of the first to arrive on the scene. The second, a trauma surgeon, who was one of the first to greet him here at the hospital. They say this boy was essentially dead as far as they could see, but he was revived, of course. He's now unconscious in critical condition, but he spent a pretty good night - a stable night. They are now cautiously optimistic.

Now the scene on the beach was what was really remarkable on Friday evening. With me right now, J.R. Tomasovic, he is chief ranger out there.

Tell me this, first of all, were there -- have there been many shark attacks out there?

J.R. TOMASOVIC, NATIONAL PARK RANGER: The last attack we had was in 1999.

CABELL: But you've seen sharks out there on a regular basis?

TOMASOVIC: That's correct. Shark activity off the park is a daily event to us.

CABELL: What did your people do? You had three people out there, what did they do?

TOMASOVIC: We initially got a call that there had been a shark attack with CPR in progress. And we had two of our rangers respond to the scene: Ranger Klein and Ranger Lakota (ph).

When Ranger Lakota arrived on scene, the boy's aunt was performing CPR on the child. Ranger Lakota took over CPR. Ranger Klein went over to where the shark was and they determined that the shark probably had the boy's arm inside its gullet. Ranger Klein proceeded to shoot the shark four times. They were able to pry open the shark's mouth with an expandable baton and one of our lifeguards, Tony Thomas, reached into the shark's mouth with a pair of hemostats to pull out the arm.

CABELL: Are they trained to do anything like this?

TOMASOVIC: Well, we train to deal with various situations, but this is one for the books.

CABELL: How are they doing now?

TOMASOVIC: Well, it's a traumatic event, as you can imagine. You know, an 8-year-old boy that had totally bled out on the scene, performing CPR and then reaching in and removing a human limb. They're doing well. They're returning to work, and we're extremely proud of them.

CABELL: Real quick, any advice for people who are out here bathing in the Gulf?

TOMASOVIC: Well, you know, the Gulf is a natural environment, just like any other park area is, and you need to be concerned about your environment. You need not to be in the water at dusk and dawn, especially with the shark activity -- that's their prime feeding time.

CABELL: OK, thank you very much.

Once again, the boy is unconscious at this point but he's shown some signs of consciousness over the last couple of days. Doctors are guardedly optimistic about his recovery at this point. The arm is doing well at this point. It's just a matter of his overall medical recovery.

I'm Brian Cabell, CNN, live in Pensacola, Florida.

KAGAN: Brian, thank you - Kyra.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Doctors say with extensive physical therapy the 8-year-old victim of Saturday's shark attack should be able to regain almost full use of his arm. The limb was surgically reattached after being bitten off in the attack, as we told you, and CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now to talk about the surgery and what's involved with reattaching this arm.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

PHILLIPS: It's pretty amazing the advanced techniques.

GUPTA: It really is, and reattaching an arm, there's a lot that goes into that. You have muscles which may have been injured due to the loss of blood, you also have nerves that need to be reattached, sometimes nerves grafts need to be put in. Equally important, blood vessels - the blood vessels that are actually cleanly cut by this shark bite actually need to be reconnected. It also involves lots of secondary surgeries likely, Kyra, down the line muscle tendon transfers, lengthening the bone, especially in someone who's a growing child like this boy is and maybe even nerve grafts later on down the road along with skin grafts. So it's -- there's a lot to it.

PHILLIPS: What are the odds? I mean the arm may fail at any moment, correct, and then...

GUPTA: That's right, and the blood supply probably is the biggest key to whether or not that arm is going to succeed. There's been a lot of studies on this particular thing. One of the studies that looked at about 60 upper extremities - arms in this case - that had been reimplanted after some kind of dramatic amputation. And actually about 80 percent of them stayed attached after the operation, 60 percent of them did well, meaning they returned to some sort of functionality. But the odds are not bad, but they're not perfect by any means.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about the other complications, too. He's already having kidney problems. He's really got a long way to go here for full recovery.

GUPTA: Yes, absolutely. This boy had a very traumatic event. I mean he lost all of his blood supply and essentially his heart was failing. And in those situations, the blood is preferentially taken away from the kidneys and that's probably why his kidneys are failing at this time. Luckily, he's a young guy with probably no other health - no other health problems, and he'll probably do OK in terms of his kidney problems down the line.

PHILLIPS: Well, he's got a strong soul. He's surviving this far. All right.

GUPTA: Quite a story.

PHILLIPS: Yes, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you

GUPTA: Thank you.

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