NAGS HEAD, N.C. (WAVY) — Nawal Baker was swimming in the ocean by Jennette’s Pier with her friend Sunday when she felt a sharp pain in her foot.
She thought it was from a small shark, so she and her friend ran out of the water.
“As soon as I fell onto the sand, it was just one of the worst bits of pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” Baker said. “I was looking to see if there were teeth marks around my foot and there was a lot of blood coming out of just like one little area where the stingray got me. But the pain is honestly indescribable.”
She was stung by a butterfly ray, a type of stingray, only realizing it when she looked down at the wound.
“That small little hole — I was like, it’s nothing,” she said. “But the pain did not show what was happening inside.”
Video sent in by David Lowcher showed at least four large stingrays in the water that same afternoon.
Nawal told 10 On Your Side through the chaos there was one person, a paramedic who was at the beach who was instrumental in calming her down until she was taken to the hospital.
“She held both of my hands, she asked me questions, she told me to breathe fully in and out,” she said, “I think I would’ve been an awful lot worse if I didn’t have her right beside me.”
That person was Debbie Wilson, a paramedic from Virginia who had noticed what was going on.
“I just kept doing things I knew would keep her awake,” Wilson said.
I said, ‘wiggle your toes, push down on my hand, say your birthday out loud.'”
She also helped put Nawal’s foot in warm water and elevated her legs.
She told 10 On Your Side many others on the beach came to help, saying it was a team effort.
“I was just a small part of the whole process of all the people that helped,” Wilson said. “Because when more people can help, it really does make the outcome more successful.”
She said they heard of about five other people who were stung by stingrays in the same area Sunday.
10 On Your Side reached out to Nags Head city officials to confirm that information but they haven’t replied yet.
