In her 11 years with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Medic, Marie Hildreth has dealt with all kinds of trauma, but never a shark attack. 
 
 But she did Sunday afternoon during a family vacation on Oak Island when 12-year-old Kiersten Yow of Asheboro was bitten in the surf only yards away. 
 
 “A woman comes yelling, ‘Shark attack! Shark attack!’” Hildreth said, as she was on the sand in front of the house her family of 17 was renting this week. 
 
 Hildreth ran over to help. 
 
 Digital Access for only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. 
 
 “Muscle memory kicked in, and it was like working everyday.” 
 
 First rules: Assess the patient. Check breathing. Stop the bleeding. 
 
 Direct pressure on wounds is the best way to deal with bleeding, but the bite was bad. She went on to the next stage – apply a tourniquet. “She could have bled out,” Hildreth said. 
 
 “It’s one thing when you’re in uniform,” Hildreth said Monday. “It’s a different situation when you have no supplies.” 
 
 Next rule: Improvise. 
 
 With a rope cut from a boogie board and another taken from a nearby beach tent, Hildreth staunched the bleeding. 
 
 Family knowledge 
 
 If you had to select a spot to be attacked by a shark, you couldn’t have done better than the beach in front of her family’s rental cottage. 
 
 Hildreth’s brother, a Charlotte firefighter was there. So was her brother-in-law, a police officer in suburban Baltimore. So was her other brother, who is trying to get on the Charlotte Fire Department. So was her husband, Charlotte Fire Capt. Greg Hildreth. 
 
 So was her mother, who saw the shark’s fin moving up the beach. She followed, warning people to get out of the surf. 
 
 It was a team effort, but under N.C. law, Hildreth was in charge by virtue of having the highest medical certification on scene. 
 
 Authorities in Oak Island praised Hildreth and her family Monday for making a difference in the outcome of the situation. Their quick action might have saved a life. 
 
 Training made difference 
 
 Hildreth said Medic provides 44 hours of in-service training annually to members of the department. Since 2012, Medic has updated its protocols on dealing with serious wounds as a result of studies on wartime casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hildreth said she was well drilled in how to handle such cases, though she never expected to face a case quite like Sunday’s. 
 
 Hildreth, 32, graduated from Butler High School and got her college degree at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. She thought about becoming a doctor, but her brother Douglass Colbert, then with the Idlewild Volunteer Fire Department, got her into paramedic work. 
 
 She got her certification from Central Piedmont Community College and loves what she does. 
 
 She has the independence to work with patients from the start, reducing their pain and, sometimes, holding their hands while getting them to a higher level of care, she said. 
 
 After Kiersten had been taken to a trauma center in Wilmington, Hildreth said her family gathered in its cottage to reflect on what had happened. 
 
 “We thanked God,” she said, “for the safety we had.” ||||| Emergency officials on Monday took to boats and helicopters in a hunt for the shark they say attacked two youths in waist-deep water Sunday in coastal North Carolina, leaving them both severely injured with lost limbs. 
 
 The boy, 16, and girl, 12, were hurt in separate attacks reported about 90 minutes apart in Oak Island, a seaside town about 30 miles south of Wilmington. 
 
 Multiple media outlets have identified the girl as Kiersten Yow, of Archdale, and Hunter Treschel, from Colorado Springs, Colo. Officials said the girl was vacationing with her family while the boy was visiting relatives in the area. 
 
 In the wake of the town’s first shark attack since the 1970s, Oak Island emergency personnel combed the beach and planned to extend their search for the shark into Tuesday, said Town Manager Tim Holloman. 
 
 Digital Access for only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. 
 
 After Sunday’s attacks, bystanders reported spotting a 7-foot shark in the water, but emergency officials did not see any from a helicopter, he said. 
 
 The incidents prompted officials to cancel a surfer’s camp scheduled at the beach this week but didn’t stop them from keeping the entire beach open because “there’s no way for us to control” sharks appearing near shore, said Oak Island Fire Chief Chris Anselmo. 
 
 “We have 9 miles of beach and more entry points that we can man,” he said. “What we can do is just advise beach-goers to be careful if they do enter the water. We can’t stop them from entering.” 
 
 The town doesn’t have any signs that warn swimmers about sharks, and there are no lifeguards stationed at the beach. 
 
 “Right now, we don’t have any way to fund those types of extra positions in the summertime,” Holloman said. “The … townspeople have not mentioned it being an issue. Even in this particular instance, I’m not sure it would have made an appreciable difference.” 
 
 Last week, a 13-year-old girl on a boogie board suffered lacerations on her foot after a shark attacked her in Ocean Isle Beach, a small town about 30 miles south of Oak Island. There’s speculation that her attack might be related to Sunday’s, but so far, “there’s been no serious correlations,” Holloman said. 
 
 #oakisland #shark copter and boat really close to shore - guys on the boat kept pointing in water around the shore pic.twitter.com/iibHxAodjR — MLB (@goheels83) June 15, 2015 
 
 Sunday’s first attack, on Yow, happened at about 4:40 p.m. near the Ocean Crest Fishing Pier, officials said. She lost part of her arm and suffered a leg injury. In the second attack, reported at about 5:50 p.m. near the 55th Street beach access – about 3 miles northeast of the fishing pier – Treschel lost his left arm, which was severed just below his shoulder, officials said. 
 
 The boy had “extensive hemorrhaging,” and officials struggled to control his bleeding, said Brunswick County EMS Director Brian Watts. If not for the intervention of bystanders, including one of the boy’s friends, “we would have had a really different outcome,” he said. 
 
 Both victims were about 20 yards offshore in waist-deep water when they were attacked, officials said. The victims were airlifted to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, hospital spokeswoman Martha Harlan said. They had surgery, and their condition has progressed from fair to good, she said. 
 
 Dr. Borden Hooks said the boy’s left arm was amputated above the elbow after it had been bitten through. He said the girl’s family asked that her injuries not be discussed. 
 
 Hooks said it was too early to know the long-term outcome of the cases. “I can only tell you that they’ve made a lot of advances in prosthetic limbs,” he said. 
 
 Both victims remained hospitalized Monday night. Efforts to reach family members were unsuccessful. Treschel’s mother issued a statement, thanking doctors, emergency room staff, police and bystanders who helped her son. 
 
 Witness accounts 
 
 Greg Gallihugh, a fisherman from Charlottesville, Va., saw the attack on the girl from the Ocean Crest pier. When a crowd gathered on the beach, he thought at first someone had been pulled from the surf after drowning. 
 
 He had seen a school of sharks – big ones, maybe bull sharks – feeding around the pier Sunday. Water conditions were murky. 
 
 “Maybe it’s one rogue bull shark,” said Gallihugh, who has been coming to Oak Island to fish for 15 years. “Every now and then you get one.” 
 
 Buck Clark, a contractor from Crozet, Va., saw the commotion on the beach where the girl was attacked. 
 
 “It probably didn’t know what it was biting,” Clark said. 
 
 Children were riding boogie boards in the surf all around the area and the shark might have mistaken them in the turbidity of the surf as turtles, which sharks feed on. He has been fishing in the area for years and has seen hundreds of sharks in the waters off Oak Island. 
 
 “There’s always sharks here,” he said. “But no shark attacks.” 
 
 Hubert Reaves, born and raised in nearby Bolivia, has been coming to the shore for all his 69 years. 
 
 “I’ve never heard of anything like this,” he said. 
 
 “We can’t control this ocean,” Reaves said. “We don’t know what’s out there.” 
 
 [MORE] Town manager: "Oak Island still a safe place." Says this is not normal shark activity. Oak Island beaches are open today. — ChristineSperow WBTV (@ChristineOnTV) June 15, 2015 
 
 What kind of shark was it? 
 
 Officials would not say what kind of shark attacked the youths, or if they believe it was the same one. One expert said he believes a lone bull shark attacked the teens. 
 
 “There’s not a lot of cases of these kinds of bites occurring in such proximity, both time and distance,” said Dan Abel, a professor of marine science at Coastal Carolina University in Myrtle Beach. “My best guess is that this is a single shark.” 
 
 He theorized that a bull shark – a “robust-looking … typical shark-looking beast” indigenous to warmer waters and known for their aggressive bite – might be responsible. 
 
 “They’ve got very sharp, serrated teeth that are good for shearing, unfortunately,” he said. “They do penetrate into fresh water in parts of the developing world where people are in freshwater fishing or even washing clothes. They will periodically bite people.” 
 
 Despite Sunday’s incidents, Abel said shark attacks are infrequent and “low likelihood events.” Thirty-four shark attacks were reported in North Carolina between 2001 and 2014, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. 
 
 Unusual event 
 
 On Monday, Oak Island’s beaches were active, but few people were venturing beyond the toe-dipping range. 
 
 A sheriff’s helicopter flew sorties up and down the beach, but there were no fins to be seen in the water, beyond a school of dolphin characteristically bobbing offshore at midday. 
 
 There was plenty of chumming going on, but by nature – a school of bluefish was feeding on bait fish around the Ocean Crest pier and seabirds were nipping the leftovers. Sunday’s big sharks apparently moved north with the current, fishermen said. 
 
 But the attacks attracted something usually seen in Oak Island only when the big storms hit – TV crews from CNN and The Weather Channel. 
 
 Mitzi York, executive director of the Brunswick County Tourism Development Authority, doubts widespread news of the attacks will hinder tourism. 
 
 “I think a lot of folks understand that this is a highly … extraordinary incident,” she said. “It’s certainly not that commonplace.” 
 
 The Associated Press contributed. ||||| The two young victims of Sunday's back-to-back shark attacks lost their arms in the brutal clutches of the sharks off the coast of North Carolina, but both appear to be taking their injuries in stride. 
 
 Hunter Treschel, a 16-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colo., showed his poise in his first interview Tuesday from a bed in New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, just 35 miles from the Oak Island beach where the pair got chomped by sharks in incidents a mere 90 minutes apart from one another. The teen "didn't see it coming," he said in YouTube videos posted by the hospital. 
 
 "That was the first I saw it, when it was biting up my left arm, kind of," said Treschel. "And then it got that off, eventually." 
 
 The young man is actually able to laugh about the horrifying shark bite that took off most of his left arm and he thanked emergency personnel and hospital staff, along with the messages of support he's received from all over. He now faces the choice of trying to move forward with his life undeterred or let his life be ruined by the loss of his limb, he says. 
 
 Hunter Treschel lost his left arm, just below the shoulder, in a shark attack in North Carolina. (GoFundMe) The 16-year-old says he "didn't see it coming." (New Handover Regional Med Center) 
 
 "Out of those two, there's really only one that I would actually choose to do, and that's to try to fight and live a normal life with the cards that I've been dealt." 
 
 Meanwhile, the other one of the two young beachgoers who was first injured on Sunday received some encouraging news Tuesday. 
 
 Kiersten Yow, 12, is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital at the University of North Carolina after Sunday’s traumatic encounter. 
 
 “She has a long road to recovery that will include surgeries and rehabilitation, but her doctors at UNC expect she will keep her leg, and for that we are grateful,” parents Brian and Laurie Yow said in a statement. 
 
 Kiersten was in waist-deep water off the coast of Oak Island when she was attacked. The shark ripped off her left arm below the elbow and badly injured her left leg. 
 
 Beachgoers rushed to her aid, and emergency responders called in a medical chopper to fly her to New Hanover for emergency surgery. She was later transferred to Children’s Hospital. 
 
 Kiersten Yow, 12, lost part of her arm to a shark attack off a beach Oak Island, N.C., on Sunday. Her left leg was badly injured in the incident, but her parents say that doctors are confident that they can save it. (Facebook) 
 
 Oak Island doesn’t have lifeguards, and shark attacks are rare, authorities said. 
 
 “In the 16 years I’ve been here on this island in the fire department, I’ve never had a shark attack — and it was two,” fire Chief Chris Anselmo told the Daily News. 
 
 He called the shark encounters a “freak accident” and said locals in the coastal town were pulling for the injured boy and girl. 
 
 Bystanders use a leash from a boogie board to help stanch the bleeding after a 12-year-old girl lost her left arm during a shark attack Sunday in Oak Island, N.C. (Steve Bouser/AP) Emergency responders assist a 12-year-old girl on Sunday after a shark attack in Oak Island, N.C. (Steve Bouser/AP) Authorities said the girl, shown, and a boy who was attacked could have died if not for a fast response from witnesses and paramedics. (Steve Bouser/AP) 
 
 “These kids didn’t do anything wrong,” Anselmo said. “It’s just a tragic accident that happened.” 
 
 ON A MOBILE DEVICE? SEE THE FIRST VIDEO HERE AND THE SECOND VIDEO HERE. 
 
 
 
 With TOBIAS SALINGER ||||| Two teenagers were mauled in separate shark attacks on the same stretch of North Carolina beach Sunday, both suffering life-threatening injuries, local officials said. 
 
 A 13-year-old girl lost a part of her arm when she was bitten by a shark in an attack that occurred around 4:40 p.m. in Oak Island, a town about 30 miles south of Wilmington, according to Brunswick County officials. 
 
 The girl lost part of her left arm and may lose her left leg, Oak Island Mayor Betty Wallace said in a Facebook post. 
 
 Just over an hour later, EMS received a call that a 16-year-old boy was attacked on beach roughly two miles from where the girl was attacked, and Wallace said he may have lost his arm. 
 
 Both of the teens were airlifted to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, and both were out of surgery in stable condition late this evening, officials said. 
 
 Steve Bouser/The Pilot, Southern Pines, N.C. via AP 
 
 Teams were out looking for any sharks that might have been involved in the attacks, the mayor said. 
 
 "They have a helicopter and they're flying the helicopter up along the beach to see if they spot anything," Wallace said. 
 
 Town manager Tim Holloman said that in 16 years he has never seen anything like what happened today. 
 
 "Oak Island is still a safe place," he said. "We're monitoring the situation. This is highly unusual." 
 
 He said the beaches would be open on Monday, but visitors would be encouraged not to go in the water. 
 
 "The Brunswick County Sheriff's department will have Marine One and their helicopter support to monitor the coastline for any activities tomorrow," he said. 
 
 Given that these bites have led to such serious injuries, experts say, it is highly likely that these are bigger sharks -- tiger or bull sharks -- whose teeth and bites are designed to rip and tear. 
 
 "This is the real deal threat," said George Burgess of the University of Florida, who has been studying sharks for 40 years and publishes the International Shark Attack File. "This is highly unusual -- I have seen this twice in 40 years. Once in Egypt and once in the Florida Panhandle." 
 
 These incidents occurred just 30 miles up the coast from Ocean Isle Beach, where a 13-year-old girl was bitten by a shark on Thursday. The teen suffered lacerations on her foot, but was not severely injured. ||||| OUR FREE LOCAL 6 STORM TRACKING APP. JUST SEARCH WKMG IN YOUR APP STORE. A TRIP TO THE BEACH ENDS IN MOMENTS OF PANIC AFTER A SHARK BIT A CHUNK OUT OF A WOMAN'S LEG. RIGHT NOW SHE'S IN SURGERY IN FACT. THIS HAPPENED ON PONCE DAY LEON PARK IN MELBOURNE BEACH REPORT THE WOMAN'S BROTHER SAYS THE SHARK PIT HER ON HER CALF. SHE SAYS SHE WAS OBVIOUSLY TERRIFIED WHEN IT HAPPENED, BUT NOW SHE'S IN GOOD SPIRIT. CONTINUE -- Reporter: A FAMILY TRIP TO THEIR FAVORITE BEACH ENDED WITH RICK'S SISTER IN SURGERY AFTER SHE WAS BITTEN BY A SHARK. SHE LOOKED OKAY. SHESHE WAS FADING IN AND OUT. WHEN YOU LOSE A LOT OF BLOOD LIKE THAT, IT'S A SHOCKING THING FOR AN HAVE I. Reporter: THEY LIVE IN INDIAN HARBOR BEACH, JUST A FEW MILES NORTH FROM WHERE THE SHARK ATTACK HAPPENED. HE SAID HIS SISTER'S TWO BABIES WERE PLAYING IN THE SAND WITH FAMILY MEMBERS WHILE HE AND HIS SISTER WERE BODY BOARDING WHEN HE NOTICED SOMETHING WASN'T RIGHT. SHE WHAT A BIG GOUGE TAKEN OUT OF HER CALL F. I TOLL HER NOT TO LOOK AT IT, WAITED FOR THE AMBULANCE. Reporter: LIFEGUARDS DON'T PATROL PONCE DAY LEON PARK SO IT WAS UP THE 38 YEAR OLD'S FAMILY AND GOOD SAMARITANS ON THE BEACH TO HELP HER OUT OF THE SURF UNTIL PARAMEDICS ARRIVE. YOU ALWAYS HEAR YOU HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF GETTING HIT BY LIGHTNING OR STRIKING THE LOTTERY BUT IT'S A SHARK BITE. Reporter: HER BROTHER SAYS 
 
 MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. - 
 
 A 38-year-old woman on a family trip to the beach was attacked by a shark Thursday morning off Brevard County. 
 
 [RECOMMENDED: Mom seeks stop to circumcision | Python takes over bathroom] 
 
 Brevard Ocean Rescue officials say the attack happened near Ponce de Leon Park on Melbourne Beach. 
 
 "Typically you'll see fish jumping out of the water, birds chasing after the fish.. it was just out of nowhere, bam," said Rick Tatsch, the victim's brother. 
 
 Tatsch said he was body boarding with his 38-year-old sister while her two children played in the sand with family members when she had a "chunk" taken out of her calf. 
 
 "She looked OK, she was fading in and out a little bit because when you're losing a lot of blood like that you seem to feel a little faint at that time," he said. "It's kind of a shocking thing for an individual." 
 
 The woman, who lives in Indian Harbour Beach, was taken to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, and her brother said she was in good spirits. 
 
 "You always expect it, you always hear that you have a better chance to get struck by lightning or winning the lottery and go figure it's the shark bite that comes first, but I was telling her, 'maybe we can win the lotto tonight,'" said Tatsch. 
 
 
 
 [CAST YOUR VOTE: Which Florida animal scares you the most?] 
 
 There are no lifeguards in the area where the shark attack occurred and Tatsch said his family and other beachgoers brought her to shore. 
 
 It's not known what type of shark attacked the woman. 
 
 A 2,300-pound great white shark tracked by research group Ocearch pinged off the Brevard Coast earlier in the week, but the group's website showed the great white near South Florida on Thursday. 
 
 Named Katharine, the 14-foot shark was just six miles off the coast of Sebastian Inlet on Monday night. 
 
 [SEE THESE? Fashionable felons | Fla. mug shots | Funny office signs | Prom gone wrong] 
 
 Watch Local 6 News and stay with ClickOrlando.com for more on this story.
– After two young people lost their left arms in an extremely rare pair of shark attacks on Sunday, there were ATVs patrolling the beach, and helicopters and boats searching the waters off Oak Island, NC, yesterday—but no lifeguards. Town officials say they'll keep looking for sharks, but they have neither the ability nor the authority to keep people out of the water, despite recommendations from shark experts. More: The town's fire chief says the beach stayed open because "there's no way for us to control" sharks near the shore. "We have 9 miles of beach and more entry points [than] we can man," he tells the Charlotte Observer. "What we can do is just advise beach-goers to be careful if they do enter the water. We can't stop them from entering." The town's manager says there's no money for lifeguards, and it's not clear whether they would have made a difference. University of Florida shark expert George Burgess, however, tells the Guardian that officials "should consider closing the beach" for at least a couple of days, getting extra lifeguards in the area," and teaching people that to enter the ocean is to enter a wilderness. Burgess adds that while it was probably the same shark in both attacks, the chances of identifying it are "slim to none" and it could be 40 miles away by now. The town's manager tells the Los Angeles Times that if any sharks are seen displaying "aggressive" behavior—like coming within 100 feet of the shore—they may be killed, though shark experts say this is a "foolhardy" approach that didn't reduce shark attacks when it was tried in Australia. Both victims, a 12-year-old girl whose age was initially reported as 13 and a 16-year-old boy, are now in fair condition, reports the AP, which notes that they were both swimming around 20 yards offshore in waist-deep water—and authorities didn't warn beachgoers until after the first attack. If the girl had been attacked at another part of the beach, she might not have survived, according to another Charlotte Observer story. After the bite, the girl was taken onto the beach just yards away from the rental cottage of Marie Hildreth, an experienced Charlotte paramedic who ran to help and was able to stanch the bleeding with a rope cut from a surfing bodyboard. And there was more help at hand: Hildreth was on vacation with relatives, including her fire captain husband, her police officer brother-in-law, her firefighter brother, and her mother, who warned people to get out of the water.