Nurse savaged by shark while snorkelling off idyllic islands turning the ocean blood red

A HOLIDAYMAKER was brutally attacked by a shark while she was snorkelling off the idyllic Galapagos Islands.

Horrified Delia Yriarte, 42, saw the water turning red after she was bitten on her right leg while she was swimming near the tiny islet of Mosquera.

The nurse, who is a US national, was in the water observing marine species on July 4 when she was suddenly savaged.

Delia told local media: "It felt like a blow so I didn’t initially realise what it was.

"While I was swimming I felt my leg go numb. "When I turned around, I saw there was a lot of blood."

She added: “By the time we got to the beach, I was already feeling drained.

“I knew what type of wound it was, I saw it was deep and I knew I was losing a lot of blood.”

Dramatic footage shows the woman being carried off a dinghy with her leg wrapped in material.

In another clip, she is seen exercising her right leg with the help of a doctor after her wounds were stitched up.

Renato Pacheco, doctor at Hospital República del Ecuador on Santa Cruz Island, said: "She is stable, she is conscious, she underwent surgery on her right leg. She did not lose her leg."

Pacheco stressed that the woman never lost consciousness or the mobility of her leg and foot.

The Ecuadorian Navy said the injured woman was transferred from Santa Cruz Island to San Cristóbal Island before leaving on a military plane to the city of Guayaquil on the mainland.

The Galapagos archipelago is situated about 600 miles from the Ecuadorian coast.

The Islands’ ecological diversity helped Charles Darwin to formulate his theory of evolution by natural selection.

UNESCO declared the islands a Natural Heritage of Humanity in 1979.

Today, tourists flock to the islands to observe whales, sharks and other wildlife.

In 2018, British businessman Andrew Newman was attacked by a shark off the coast of Santa Fe Island.

He said he was watching some sea lions when he suddenly felt a strong bite on his leg and noticed a 3.5m-long shark attacking him.

Newman said he used his GoPro to whack the shark over the head until he could wriggle free.

Earlier this month a man who was bitten five times by a Mako shark off the coast of Egypt shared how he was saved by a heroic group of animals.

Martin Richardson described how the predator stopped its brutal attack when a pod of dolphins appeared behind him.