A 13-year-old boy is facing his fears of the water and ocean after a shark attacked him and bit off his leg. Although he survived the attack, the recovery process has been long and life-saving.
13-year-old Jameson Reeder Jr. had part of his leg amputated three years ago after getting attacked. An 8-foot bull shark bit him while he was snorkeling on a family vacation in the Florida Keys. Since then, the boy has been focused on his recovery efforts. In a new interview with Good Morning America, he revealed he was finally ready to go back in the water.
He felt "a little scared before I jumped in." But he overcame this fear.
"I wanted to go in and for a split two seconds, it was like a whole flashback of the whole shark attack just because of the environment of the whole reef," he said. "I knew I had the Lord and so, I popped up and I just had a lot of fun."
Boy Heals After Shark Attack
It was an emotional moment for the family after the shark attack.
"To see him reclaim that from fear was such, I think, not just victory for him and all of us, but for so many people who've been following the story," added his dad, Jameson Reeder Sr. "And do it with so much joy and strength. That was the epitome of that day — joy and strength."
Reeder has come far from that day when he was attacked. The situation was so bad that he had to be airlifted to a local hospital for amputation.
"They had to remove/amputate from just below the knee to save his life as it was not operable from the damage the shark had caused," his uncle Joshua Reeder wrote on Facebook in 2022. "They said the shark made the decision for him and wasn't anything they could do to save it."
Outside of getting back in the water, he also wants to focus on baseball again.
"I was a pitcher before the shark attack and I'm trying to get back to it. I've had some tough times and pain," the boy said, "but with how good prosthetics are getting, I actually have no more pain now playing."
