Aspen high schooler hospitalized after Belize shark attack

A teenager from Aspen was severely injured in a shark attack while scuba diving in Belize.

Annabelle Carlson, 15, had just finished scuba diving with a tour group and her family while on vacation in Belize when she decided to jump back into the water for a quick swim, according to a GoFundMe page set up by a family friend.

“That’s when the unimaginable encounter happened. The odds are 1 in 11.5 million that this could happen,” the fundraising page stated. “That unimaginable encounter was a shark attack. It was a very aggressive, very traumatic, terror-filled fight for her life.”

The family friend, Aja Jewell, said Carlson was “critically injured” in the attack, but didn’t specify how the teenager was injured.

According to Jewell, emergency responders in Belize airlifted Carlson to a trauma medical center in Belize City. Once Carlson was stabilized, she was flown back to the United States, where she remains hospitalized.