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June 25, 2005

Jamie Daigle, of Gonzales, Louisiana, and her friend Felicia Venable, also 14, were swimming Saturday morning about 200 yards offshore in the Gulf of Mexico when they saw a dark shadow in the water, according to a statement issued Sunday by the Walton County Sheriff's Office.

Tim Dicus was surfing near the girls Saturday when he heard a scream.

"I was about 200 yards out, just past the second sandbar," Dicus said. "And when I heard the scream, I turned around and saw one of the girls swimming towards the beach frantically and the other one had disappeared and there was a big dark spot where she used to be in the water."

"She was unconscious when I got to the blood pool," Dicus said.

"So I tried to pull her from the water -- the shark had made an attack when I was trying to get her out of the water. But it gave me enough time to get her on to the board once he had to come back around to make another attack."

Dicus said the shark -- about 8 feet long -- continued to try to attack them on his surfboard as he made his way to shore.

"He was really aggressive," Dicus said. "I've been here a long time and I've never seen a shark get that aggressive."

"She was hurt really bad. It looked like she was going to at least lose her leg," Dicus said.

"The damage on her left leg was really extensive, and I didn't know whether she had just gone into shock -- but she'd pretty much stopped bleeding by the time I got her on to the beach -- so I didn't know how we were going to save her."

Dicus said he had warned other swimmers earlier in the day against going out too far, fearing shark attacks.

Although shark sightings are not uncommon along the coast, no one had seen a shark in the area Saturday before the attack, Owens said.

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swimming , florida , shark , little girl , shark attack , fatal