WAILUKU — A day after a shark bit her, Barbara Zawacki recalled the the force of the attack Monday that brought sudden terror to what had been a workout session about 30 yards from shore at Kamaole Beach Park I.

“I’m doing my exercises, (then) all of a sudden, I literally am propelled through the water. I went backward in the water, with the force of the shark, when he bit me,” she said Tuesday afternoon from her hospital bed at Maui Memorial Medical Center. “I look and I see this massive gray thing. For a split second, I thought it was a whale because it was so big.”

But the 58-year-old Kihei resident realized it was a shark.

Then, she worried about whether her leg was still there. And, she feared the shark would return or bring more sharks. She said it could have been a 20-foot tiger shark. (No official confirmation could be made late Tuesday afternoon of the size or type of shark.)

“I don’t know if he was going to come back for another bite,” she recalled. “All I could think about was swim to shore.”

She remembered swimming sidewards, “kind of looking” to see if the shark was coming back.

“I was not able to use my legs so good.”

As she neared the shore she yelled out: “Out of the water, there is a shark.”

She said she swam to shore unassisted and waved with her right hand to alert everyone that she was in trouble. But no one came.

Zawacki took a few steps on the sand when a nurse came over to her. The nurse assisted Maui County lifeguards as a tourniquet was placed on her injured right leg.

Zawacki chatted with visitors at the hospital and appeared to be in good spirits. Tuesday she said she had stitches in various places on her right leg from her upper-right thigh to about the middle of her calf. There were flaps of open skin left behind and teeth marks, she said. Zawacki covered her legs with a hospital blanket and declined having her photo taken. Zawacki said she would go home Tuesday.

All three Kamaole Beach Parks and Kalama and Cove parks were reopened at noon on Tuesday after there were no additional shark sightings in the water or from the air, said Fire Services Chief Edward Taomoto.

Maui County lifeguards and state Department of Land and Natural Resources conservation officers patrolled South Maui waters in the vicinity of the attack, he said.

Zawacki said the water was not murky, and she was not far from other swimmers who passed by her when she was in the water. She was not on a flotation device and is not part of any organized group that swims at the beach, although she does show up there regularly when social groups are there.

“We all know each other; look out for each other. It’s family,” she said.

“I’m a local person. I was not doing anything wrong that day,” Zawacki said, calling the attack a freak incident.

She said she found it ironic that Monday’s shark attack occurred just a month after a woman was bitten nearby between Charley Young and Kamaole Beach parks on Oct. 14.

In that incident, a woman suffered deep lacerations to her lower left leg and a minor laceration to her left foot.

Zawacki was in the water when that attack happened last month. She heard horns going off, alerting everyone to get out of the water. A woman who was nearby froze when she heard the warning, got a muscle cramp and couldn’t move.

Knowing a shark was around, Zawacki helped the woman get to shore.

“So I towed her to shore, as we were getting to the shore, the entire beach (of people) lined up along the shore. You could hear a pin drop,” Zawacki said.

“It was very quiet . . . Nobody came out (to help),” she said.

As for Monday’s incident, Zawacki said it won’t stop her from returning to the water. Fear can’t rule a person’s life, she said.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

* Shark bite: Barbara Zawacki, 58, of Kihei, who was bitten by a shark off Kamaole Beach Park I, was discharged from Maui Memorial Medical Center on Tuesday. A story on Page A1 on Wednesday incorrectly said when she would be leaving the hospital.

The Maui News apologizes for the error.

* The Maui News wants to promptly correct errors in fact or make clarifications on information appearing in the newspaper. To report an error or clarification, please call 242-6343 or send email to citydesk@mauinews.com.