Annabelle Carlson recalls shark attack in Belize

A Colorado teen who was viciously attacked by two sharks her during a family vacation last year recalled the harrowing moment she realized she lost her leg.

Annabelle Carson was on a scuba excursion with her family in the Gulf of Honduras, three hours off the coast of Belize in August 2024 when she was bitten.

The beasts pounced on Carlson almost immediately after she hit the water, she said.

“My leg was pretty much gone … it was kind of just bone from right below my knee to my ankle,” Annabelle Carlson, 16, told NewsNation Friday.

She and her siblings had decided to jump off the boat when “a shark came from under the boat and started biting my hands.”

The teenager ferociously “threw a few punches,” even though she had no idea what she was up against.

“I didn’t really know what was going on, and then it kind of dawned on me that I was being attacked by a shark,” Carlson said.

Carlon’s family desperately shouted at the 6-foot-long reef shark and threw a life ring at her so they could rescue her — but that’s when the real horror began.

“I kind of looped it in my arm because my hands were pretty damaged, and they started to pull me in, and that’s when the second shark attacked,” the teen said.

The shark sank its teeth into her right leg, but Carlson’s adrenaline was pumping so intensely that she didn’t feel any pain, previously describing the sensation like a game of “tug-of-war.”

Her family and other boaters tossed oxygen tanks at the shark until it finally released the girl, but by then her leg had been shredded to the point that only her bone from her knee to her ankle remained.

“That’s when I kinda realized the severity of the situation and I realized we needed to get help fast,” she said.

It took nearly an hour and a half for the boat to reach an island, where a helicopter jetted Carlson to Belize Healthcare Partners hospital in Belize City.

Carlson, whose leg was amputated, spent four months hospitalized, undergoing seven painstaking surgeries and battling a rare bacterial infection.

Despite her traumatic encounter, the Aspen native has remained optimistic and even jokes about the attack. Just weeks after losing her leg, Carlson dressed up as a shark attack survivor for Halloween, and her friend played the part of the hungry shark.

The teen has even already returned to the water, having gone scuba diving for her spring break.

“I feel like it’s best to see the positive side of things,” she said.