Boy attacked by shark while swimming in Louisiana lake

Published October 21, 2015

A brown pelican is silhouetted against the setting sun on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2007. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

A screaming 7-year-old boy was pulled from Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana on Friday afternoon, his left foot oozing blood. It wasn't until he calmed down enough to stop screaming that he managed to explain that something had hit and then charged him in the water, biting so hard he had to kick to get it off.

And while he was doubtful at first, a man who tags sharks for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says when he saw the kid's foot he knew: "Without a doubt, it's a bull shark—probably around 5 feet," he told Nola.com.

Bull sharks are known to attack humans from time to time. While many boaters, swimmers, and fishermen don't realize there are sharks in Lake Pontchartrain, there are plenty.

That's because the 630-square-mile lake is misleadingly named; it's not a true lake, but rather an estuary that feeds into the Gulf of Mexico, where salt and fresh waters mingle, according to SaveOurLake.org.

That doesn't make the boy's mom any less stunned. "We've been swimming in the lake forever," she tells WWLTV. "You don't think something like that will happen." The bites were deep, but the boy is expected to recover.

(In a New York creek in June, a kayaker was savagely attacked by a beaver.)