A woman attacked by a shark while swimming off San Onofre Beach at California's Camp Pendleton is "fighting for her life", according to her mother.
Leeanne Ericson, 35, was bitten on the thigh about 6.30pm local time on Saturday as she swam off an area known as "Church" at San Onofre, south of San Clemente. She was pulled ashore by horrified bystanders, who administered first aid until medical personnel could fly her to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, authorities said.
"[The shark] tore her right back leg from her glute to her knee," the woman's mother, Christine McKnerney Leidle, wrote on a GoFundMe page. "The doctors also say that she drowned when the shark pulled her under. She's now in Scripps Memorial Hospital fighting for her life. She is a single mom with three young children who depend on her. She has a long rode [sic] ahead with several surgeries to go. I don't know how much this will cost, but she's going to need all the help she can get."
Laura Smith, a family friend, told CBS 8 that Ericson was swimming with her boyfriend when a rescuer who was surfing heard her scream. "He jumped and dove off the board and went looking for her. [He] found her on the bottom and brought her up on the surf board and paddled in with her and tied the [surfboard] leash around her leg to try to control the bleeding until they airlifted her down to the hospital. If it wasn't for him she wouldn't have made it. He truly saved her life."
A rubber surfboard leash was used as a tourniquet, witnesses said.