HOUSTON -- A Fort Worth boy survived a shark attack in early July, and surgeons in Houston have been working ever since to save his foot.
The attack happened off of a remote beach about three and a half hours from Galveston. Nicholas Vossler, 12, was playing near a sandbar when a bull shark grabbed his left foot and began to maul it.
"It felt like a vibrating sensation, and I was yelling," said Nicholas.
But the shark did a lot of damage before it let go.
"I looked at my foot and I was like, wow, the artery was sticking out, bone was sticking out," said Nicholas.
Cecil Vossler, the boy’s father, was on the beach when the struggle started. Mark Constein, a family friend, was already in the water and carried Nicholas out.
"I took off a shirt...a nylon shirt, and I put the skin back over his foot and wrapped it up," said Cecil Vossler. "We were trying to stop the bleeding."
The beach was too remote for cars. The family had to rush Nicholas to a nearby town by boat. On the boat ride back from the island, Nicholas didn’t look good.
"He told his mom, mom you need to start praying for me and she started praying out loud," said Nicholas’ father.
A helicopter then took him to Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. Nicholas has undergone six surgeries to repair his badly damaged foot, which included a skin graft and muscle graft from his arm and leg.
"Once the orthopedic surgeons put the bones together and fixed the tendons, we had to put some flesh over it," said Dr. Emmanuel Melissinos, a micro-surgeon at Children’s Memorial Hermann.
Nicholas now has to stay very still to allow all of the newly grafted tissues and vessels to connect and heal. It hasn’t been easy for the 12-year-old. But Dr. Melissinos said he’s been a good patient.
Nicholas could leave the hospital as soon as Wednesday and said he’s looking forward to getting home.
