The pregnant wife of former NBA star Danilo Gallinari is sharing her story after she survived a shark attack off the coast of Puerto Rico.
Eleonora Boi, an Italian sports journalist, spoke to Good Morning America on Thursday to share the harrowing experience. For starters, the mother of two is currently six months pregnant. She was with her family vacationing in Puerto Rico and enjoying the beach when the nightmare unfolded.
Boi says she was waist-deep with one of her kids when she says she was bitten in the thigh. Boi told the morning news program that the experience left her traumatized, to say the least.
“I felt a strong pain, and my thigh was burning, but my idea was, ‘Maybe it’s a huge jellyfish.’ But in the reality, it wasn’t a jellyfish,” Boi told GMA. “I started crying and screaming and I was screaming for help in Italian.”
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Boi recalled screaming in Italian, desperately hoping she wouldn’t die from the injury and that her unborn child was OK.
Fortunately, Boi and her family were comforted by a Good Samaritan who ran to her aid and applied pressure to the wound until paramedics arrived. Seemingly making matters worse, doctors told Boi that they had never treated a shark bite victim.
That being said, Boi, who is due in November, says doctors told her she’ll make a full recovery.
Gallinari currently plays in Puerto Rico. He spent 16 seasons in the NBA after the New York Knicks selected him with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft.
