Kori Robertson was minding her own business, standing waist-deep in water chatting with a friend, when she felt a jerk on her leg, followed by sharp pain. The 22-year-old college student didn't know what was happening, but she knew it wasn't good.

"I had been stung by a jellyfish before and it did not feel like that," said Robertson, who was enjoying Memorial Day with a handful of friends on Follett's Island, near Surfside, when the good time suddenly ended. "It didn't feel like a little fish nibbling at me. I had to pull my leg up out of the water, then I thought I had to get out of the water. Now."

Though she never saw the culprit in the brown water, Robertson said she was told by doctors it was a shark that had bitten her right thigh, likely a bull shark, which are plentiful along the upper Texas coast and are known for aggressive behavior. Not for nothing are they likened to aquatic pit bulls. Then again, said shark was probably minding its own business as well, swimming through the shallow water, looking for a snack, when suddenly a fleshy object appeared right before it.

"I just want people to know about this," Robertson said. "It's not something you usually think about"

Robertson, a senior education major at the University of Houston, is more of a beach lover than a shark hater despite her fresh wounds. She just wants people to think twice about the water they and their children are playing in. Bull sharks rarely inflict fatal wounds, but they can inflict a nasty gash that may require multiple surgeries if tendons are severed.

In that sense, Robertson was lucky. Whatever bit her did not get a good hold on her thigh. Her skin was badly cut, but the bite was only 1 centimeter deep. Her doctors' biggest concern is infection from the warm Gulf water. Her concern: "Big scars."

Robertson's boyfriend rushed her to the hospital after wrapping her thigh in a towel. Emergency room doctors at UTMB in Galveston treated her wounds but did not stitch them up, fearing that would make it easier for infection to set in. She is recuperating at her mother's home in The Woodlands.

"Even on the way to the hospital, I said we need to take pictures of this," she said. "I have nieces and nephews who I take out further than this. "

Shark attacks along the Texas coast are uncommon and rarely fatal. The International Shark Attack File maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History shows 34 attacks from 1911 through 2010 for all of Texas, with 16 in the last decade, none of them fatal.

"I'm definitely not scared, though it will take me awhile before I go further out in the water," Robertson said. "You need to use caution. You definitely want to be able to see your feet."

mike.tolson@chron.com