The Nation - News from April 19, 1987

A shark bit off a 16-year-old girl’s arm about six to eight inches above the elbow in chest-deep waters near Port Aransas, Tex., as her father frantically pounded at the fish, finally succeeding in fending it off, Nueces County Constable Deewayne Mathews said. The girl, identified as April Dawn Voglino of Kingsland, Tex., was listed in critical condition at Memorial Medical Center in Corpus Christi, a hospital spokeswoman said. The father, Robert Voglino, was apparently uninjured. After Voglino drove away the shark, he yelled at his daughter to swim to the shore and “then took a position between her and the shark,” the constable added. The shark made another attempt to attack, but the father grabbed its dorsal fin and hit it with his fist. The shark turned away.