Man attacked by shark just 20 miles from Miami gets 27 stitches, but says the outcome could have been so much worse

A man from Florida is getting better after a shark bit him while he was swimming with his friends. The attack took place on Saturday, near Boca Chita Key, which is around 20 miles away from Miami.

According to People, Yosvany Echevarria, who is 46 years old and lives in Hialeah, was in the water looking at fish and coral when the shark came at him. He talked about what happened with help from a translator and said he was underwater when the shark went straight for his hands. The bites were bad and doctors had to use 27 stitches to close up the wounds.

Even though he got hurt pretty badly, Echevarria knows things could have gone much worse for him. He talked to the media and asked people to watch out when they go to the ocean. “They need to be careful. It could have been much worse. I was lucky it was just bites. He could have ripped my arm off,” he said. The shark was white and bit down on his hand and arm about seven or eight times.

The emergency response made all the difference

The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue team got a call about someone getting hurt by an animal around 11:30 in the morning. They sent out their Air Rescue South team and Fireboat 73 to help. Echevarria and his friends were swimming not too far from the beach, so they managed to get back to land fast and asked someone to come get them. After that, rescue workers took him by helicopter to a hospital where doctors could fix his injuries.

Echevarria said he felt really scared when the shark bit him. “I was scared. I was in a lot of pain,” he explained. The shark went after his hands and arm, and the injuries needed a lot of work from doctors to repair.

Echevarria moved to America from Cuba three years back and really enjoys going snorkeling. After going through this scary hospital visit, he wants other people to know they need to be more careful in the water. He told news reporters that he feels lucky because he still has his arm and his life, but other people might not be so fortunate if something like this happens to them.

Florida has more shark encounters than any other state in America. Numbers from the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File show that 88 people around the world had run-ins with sharks in 2024.

Out of those, 47 times the shark attacked without being bothered first, and 24 times something provoked the shark. Florida had 14 attacks where the shark was not provoked, which was more than any other state last year. Shark attacks do not happen very often, but what happened to Echevarria shows that people who swim and snorkel in the ocean need to pay attention and be safe.