Taking the family on vacation to Florida is supposed to be a highlight of the year.
But it all went wrong in an instant for one family.
And a family vacation to Florida turned into a nightmare after this horrible situation.
Tragedy strikes during a Virginia family’s vacation to Florida after shark attack
The Foley family of Glen Allen, Virginia went to Watersound, Florida for a beach vacation last June. Watersound is in the Florida Panhandle.
Ryan and Elisabeth Foley along with their three kids were looking to enjoy a fun day splashing around the Gulf of Mexico when tragedy struck.
Elisabeth spotted a shark in the water coming toward her family.
“It looked like a torpedo in the water,” Foley said. “It was huge.”
She tried to make it back to the shore.
“I knew I wanted to get away from it, so I started swimming towards the shore,” Foley recalled. “And that’s when he bit me between the legs, because I was I was kicking, and I just started screaming.”
Foley recalled hearing that if sharks are hit in the head, it would cause them to flee.
The mother of three tried to punch the shark.
“It grabbed me by the hand and pulled me underwater,” Foley recalled. “I thought I was going to die. I called out to God, ‘Please, let me live.’”
She made it back to the surface when she saw the damage the shark’s bite inflicted.
“It was gone,” Foley said of her arm.
Her husband managed to drag her back to the shore where a couple of off-duty medical professionals attended to her.
“I remember seeing a group of people in bathing suits, working on me,” Foley stated. “If they hadn’t been there, I certainly would have bled out, because it took 20 minutes for EMS to get there.”
Virginia mom battles with insurance company to get prosthetic arm
Foley had 25 surgeries after the shark attack with more still to come.
She hoped that her insurance company, Cigna Healthcare, would cover the cost of a myoelectric prosthetic hand.
The hand moves on electrical signals sent by muscles and would allow her to regain her independence.
She was scheduled to receive it on Christmas Eve when the insurance company denied her claim.
Cigna said it was because her policy does not cover advanced prosthetics.
“I just felt so deflated, I don’t know how else to describe it,” Foley said. “This was certainly one of the lowest points of this entire experience I’ve had.”
“It’s insane and so frustrating, because I paid for health insurance my entire life, and had the healthiest life, so I barely used it,” Foley continued. “But I need their help now, and they won’t help me.”
A GoFundMe campaign was launched that saw more than 1,000 people chip in to help raise the money she needed.
“We don’t think about how often we use our hands to do tasks until you lose one,” Foley stated.
Cigna said that it would evaluate its policies moving forward.
“While many of our health plans cover a number of prosthetic options, we are evaluating benefit updates to help expand coverage of advanced prosthetics for more people,” a Cigna Healthcare spokesman said.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.