by BARRY WIGMORE, Daily Mail

A boy of eight who was mauled by a shark is recovering in hospital after a dramatic rescue operation.

Jessie Arbogast had his right arm bitten off and a leg badly gashed as he swam in waist-deep waters off a beach in Florida.

He had lost almost all his blood by the time he had been flown to hospital. But astonishing bravery from his uncle and the emergency services meant he not only survived but had his arm recovered and reattached.

His uncle carried him to shore, gave him heart massage and, as Jessie was flown to hospital, went back into the water and wrestled the 7ft bull shark to the shore.

Next, a national park ranger shot the beached shark three times in the head to kill it.

He used his police baton to prise the shark's mouth open and slit its throat so a lifeguard could retrieve the arm from down the shark's throat.

The arm was immediately packed in ice and driven at speed to a hospital where three surgeons worked for 12 hours to stitch the arm back.

The attack happened as Jessie was on a week-long Independence Day holiday in the 90f heat at a popular tourist trap called Fort Pickens, part of a water park called the Gulf Islands National Seashore, near Pensacola.

Like many of the 100 holidaymakers on the sands on Friday, he took a sunset dip and was only a few feet from the shore when the shark attacked.

Within seconds, Jessie's arm had been torn off and his leg gashed open.

His uncle and aunt desperately tried to resuscitate him until an ambulance arrived.

Tourist Guy Ogburn, 44, from Nashville, Tennessee, said: 'He was only a few feet from the beach when the attack happened.

'When I got to the boy his arm was off, and his leg was gashed wide open, but there was no blood coming from any of his wounds.

'It looked like the shark had been feeding on him.'

A helicopter flew Jessie to the Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, where surgeon Jack Tyson said: 'He was unconscious and had no pulse or blood pressure. I think he had almost completely bled out.'

Operating teams worked through Friday night and Saturday morning to reattach the arm. Plastic surgeon Ian Rogers said: 'Amazingly this was a clean cut. You don't usually expect that in a shark attack because they tend to slash and tear their victims.

'We were lucky, too, in that the arm was remarkably clean. I think that was because it went straight down the shark's throat.'

Jessie's arm had to be shortened by several inches to get a good join but orthopaedic surgeon Juliet De Campos said: 'It should grow back to normal size as the boy grows.'

Last night, Jessie regained consciousness and started to recognise his parents, David and Claire, who have maintained a bedside vigil.

A hospital spokesman said: 'He shows no sign of infection and no sign of losing blood supply or blood flow to the arm. These are all good signs.'

Bob Hueter, of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, said July was a bad time of year for shark attacks in the Gulf of Mexico.

'It's peak time because they are hunting fish along migratory routes, and it's also a peak time for tourists - the height of the beach season.'

Last month two men were attacked by a bull shark 30 miles from the latest attack. One lost an arm.

The following week a sailor reported that a bull shark attacked his 22ft cabin cruiser near Fort Pickens after he drove between the shark and a group of swimmers when it seemed about to attack them.