A Christmas Day family swim took a nasty turn when a small shark bit a nine-year-old girl.
Cordelia Scott was swimming in a lagoon at Pororari River at Punakaiki on the West Coast when something latched onto her big toe.
Cordelia's mum, Allahna Scott, was onshore watching her daughter when it happened and says she initially wasn't concerned because the children had been joking around earlier - but it became quickly apparent it was serious.
"I pulled her out of the water and there was a brown thing about three feet long connected to her," Scott tells the Greymouth Star.
"She said it was not like an eel and it had splotches… We think it may have been a rig [shark]."
Rig, also known as 'lemon fish' and spotted dogfish, are small sharks found in coastal waters all around New Zealand, NIWA says. They are bronze or grey above, with a white belly and small white spots on their upper body and along the lateral line. They have flattened teeth arranged like paving stones to form grinding plates and feed mainly on animals that burrow in the seafloor, especially crabs.
Scott says Cordelia's toe was bleeding, so it was wrapped up before she took her to Te Nikau Hospital in Greymouth.
"Everyone was very interested - we had about five nurses come to look at the bite," Scott says.
Cordelia is on antibiotics as a precaution and is feeling "okay but sore".
