Veteran diver, 73, loses leg in horrific shark attack in Bahamas

An veteran Iowa scuba diver lost her leg in a shark attack in the Bahamas while climbing into a boat.

Heidi Ernst, 73, was on vacation and decided to go diving near Taino Beach on June 7 when a shark chewed on her left calf.

The predator kept slamming into the water, and she hit it to scare it off, but continued to nearly bleed to death.

She realized her leg would not be saved when she got back on the boat and saw the extent of her injuries.

Ernst, who completed her 500th dive in May, received urgent care from a local hospital before being flown to Miami for further treatment at the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

She was attacked while climbing a ladder to get back on a boat near a dive site called ‘Shark Junction’.

Her divemaster immediately administered first aid and put a tourniquet on her leg “because the blood vessels had been severed” while someone else called an ambulance.

“There was blood everywhere,” she recalled in an interview from her hospital bed with The Gazette. ‘I died. I would bleed to death. I was afraid I was going to die and was in severe pain.’

Ernst’s friends held her hand and did what they could to keep her awake and conscious.

“It’s just what you do when someone is in need,” she added. “You hold them and you comfort them and you tell them, ‘Just stay with them,’ so you don’t stray.”

“They were very helpful in keeping me alive. That was everyone.’

She said she was in danger and needed urgent care from a local hospital to get her into a stable condition and had two initial surgeries.

The next day, Ernst was airlifted to Miami to receive treatment at the Ryder Trauma Center.

She spoke to doctors about what could be done to save her leg.

“I made the decision with the surgeon to have my leg cut off,” she said. “It was clear it was beyond saving.”

Ernst, who had been a physical therapist for 36 years, was evaluated and a vascular surgeon said there were risks associated with saving the leg.

She said: ‘He didn’t think it would be a good idea to try to save the leg because of future problems with infection.

‘What I had left was enough to get good results.

“So I said, ‘Yeah, let’s just do it. Let’s just amputate’ and that night they took me into the operating room and did it.”

Ernst lost her foot and leg from the shin down and she has now mastered a small section to allow for a prosthetic leg.

She underwent a sixth surgery on Thursday to close the stump and will remain in hospital for the next week to recover.

Despite the attack, Ernst doesn’t blame the shark for attacking her.

She has been diving off the coast of Grand Bahama Island for 11 years and has never been afraid of sharks.

“I don’t blame the shark,” she insisted. ‘It is people who teach animals to show certain behaviour.’

She pointed out how tourists had been feeding sharks on a boat on the surface.

“It’s not natural for a shark to come to the surface,” she added.

“But the shark knew there was food to be had on a boat. And he thought my leg was the food.’

Ernst is aware of the long road to recovery when she returns to Marshalltown after decades as a physical therapist.

She said, ‘I’m realistic. I know what’s going to happen along the way… I know what to expect. And I know I have to work hard to get back where I was.

But insisted, “I can do this.”

a GoFundMe page was set up by her friend Kim Barnes to help Ernst pay for the expensive medical and travel expenses not covered by insurance.

“Heidi is fearless, kind, gentle, generous, honest, loves everything nature has to offer, has an amazing green thumb, an avid underwater photographer and a wonderful friend,” she wrote.

“Heidi is a proud, independent woman who doesn’t like to ask for help, but her friends want to help her and this is one way.”

So far $8,000 has been raised and the goal is $30,000.