OC Shark Bite Victim Ready To Go Home

LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — A woman bitten by a great white shark while swimming in the waters off Corona del Mar State Beach says she's ready to go home.

Maria Korcsmaros, 52, is in remarkably good spirits as she spoke to CBS2/KCAL9's Michele Gile clad in a hospital gown with a cast covering nearly the entire length of her right arm.

"They either hit you once and they're gone, or they hit you again, and then you're toast," Korcsmaros said of being attacked by a great white shark.

Korcsmaros — a mother and triathlete — was expected to recover from the bite she received May 29, doctors said. The shark tore through her right arm, tearing through her tricep muscle, broke two ribs, damaged her lung, her liver and fractured her pelvis.

When doctors took pictures of the injury site before cleaning her wounds, "you could see clearly that there was bite marks all down here, and the same kind of matching ones on the other side," Korcsmaros said, gesturing from her lower torso to her shoulder.

The shark that attacked her was not found.

The large single bite she suffered suggests the shark was over 10 feet long and most likely a great white, said Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach.

Meanwhile, a mile-long stretch of beach reopened again after the sighting of several large sharks had shut it down two times in two days. Officials in the city of Huntington Beach said swimmers and surfers were allowed back in the water Tuesday morning.

A sheriff's helicopter crew saw the sharks Sunday and Monday. Some of the predators were estimated to be at least 8 feet long and 150 yards from shore.

Korcsmaros, who had been training for a half-iron man marathon when she was attacked, says she will continue to train -- but will swim in lakes from now on.

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