A teen is recovering from injuries to his right leg after a shark attack at a North Carolina beach on Sunday afternoon. 

North Topsail Beach Police Chief William Younginer told Fox News Digital that he raced to the scene in Onslow County, where 14-year-old Blayne Brown had been bitten.

“I ran up to an emergency on the beach. The [police] officers [also] ran out,” he said. “There was a 14-year-old male that had been bitten by a shark.”

The attack occurred around 12:30 p.m. at North Topsail Beach, near Beach Access No. 4 in Onslow County. 

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“We heard a lot of commotion and everybody yelling, ‘Get out of the water! Shark, shark!” witness Chasity Keeter told WRAL-TV. “It was really scary.”

Brown was reportedly visiting from West Virginia. 

“I was in the water, like screaming for help,” Brown told WWAY-TV3. “People just looked at me, and thought I was just screaming to be screaming. Like, I didn’t even know there was a shark that bit me. It just scared me so bad.”

The shark bit Brown twice, once on the leg and again on the ankle.

Fortunately, two police officers and an EMS officer were already present on the scene from a previous unrelated distress call.

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“Bystanders had pulled him out, and they were wrapping a towel around him and stopping the bleeding, which is the right thing to do,” Younginer said. “That’s [exactly] what they should have done.” 

A tiger shark swims in the Atlantic Ocean. (Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Two officers applied a tourniquet to Brown, and he was transported to nearby Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, where he is recovering from his injuries.

Younginer shared that shark attacks are extremely rare in the area.

“We have some people that step on a stingray, things like that, but we haven’t had [a shark attack],” he said. “I’ve been here since 2018. We haven’t had a shark bite.”

Younginer said Brown is expected to be released from the hospital soon.

Florida’s top prosecutor hopes a few hot hands can solve some of the state’s coldest cases.

State Attorney General Ashley Moody said she plans to distribute 5,000 decks of cards inside jails and prisons featuring photos and information about unsolved crimes – including homicides and missing-persons cases.

In a statement announcing the initiative, Moody said she hopes the cards will jog some old memories that could spur fresh leads.

“I have seen so many stalled investigations get new life after someone came forward with groundbreaking information. Sometimes that new information comes from criminals or co-conspirators who have a change of conscience, or maybe they are motivated by a reward,” Moody said. 

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Dormant cases, she added, aren’t always revitalized by high-tech forensics.

“We are giving cold case cards to inmates, but we are not playing games. This low-tech approach to generating tips may prove to be an ace up the sleeve as we continue to bring finality to seemingly unbreakable cases,” she said.

The decks will be given to prisoners at 60 county jails and 145 facilities managed by the state Corrections Department.

Moody said her office will collaborate with the Florida Association of Crime Stoppers, Florida Sheriffs Association, the state’s Corrections Department and also Season of Justice, a nonprofit group dedicated to keeping cold cases warm.

Florida cited the success of the strategy in other states.

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Florida officials are giving out playing cards to inmates featuring information on cold cases and missing-persons cases to help solve stalled investigations. (Florida Association of Crime Stoppers)

Connecticut investigators, officials said, solved 20 cold cases through the initiative. South Carolina dealt the cards and cracked eight stalled investigations.

Florida will offer $9,500 jackpots for tips that result in arrests, and informants can maintain their anonymity.

Moody noted that a prior version of the program launched in 2007 helped to solve a Florida murder.

Construction workers found Ingrid Lugo, 34, dead in a retention pond in Bradenton, about 45 miles south of Tampa, in 2004.

The case had gone cold when she was featured in a deck of playing cards distributed in 2007.

An inmate who came across the six of spades alerted officials that he served time with a man named Bryan Curry and believed he was involved in the slaying.

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Joe Winkler, assistant secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, announces a new initiative to distribute playing cards featuring cold cases and missing-persons cases to inmates. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)

After Lugo called off their engagement, Curry strangled her to death. He was arrested and ultimately convicted of murder after a 2008 trial. He was sentenced to life in prison.

In another example of the program’s success, an arrest was made in the 2004 murder of retiree James Foote after an inmate saw a seven of clubs that summarized the killing. Foote had been found in a Fort Myers parking lot with a gunshot wound to his chest.

The Lake City prison inmate told authorities that Derrick Hamilton had boasted to others about the crime.

He was arrested in 2007, pleaded no contest and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Law enforcement agencies in Polk County, Florida, were the first to distribute cold case playing cards to inmates in 2005, which led to the resolution of four unsolved crimes.

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These playing cards feature information on homicide victims and missing persons. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)

According to the nonprofit Project Cold Case, the rate at which homicides are being solved in the U.S. has declined by more than 20% over the past five decades.

More than 72% of homicides were solved in 1980 compared to just 51% in 2021. To address this, Moody announced in February a new state cold case investigations unit.

“This effort aims to address some of Florida’s most haunting cold case homicides,” Moody said in a statement. “By spotlighting these cases within correctional and detention facilities, the collective hope is to generate leads that will aid in solving them, offering much-needed closure to the families and loved ones of the victims.”

The vastly different approaches taken by President Biden and former President Trump in prepping for Thursday’s presidential debate have continued to diverge, with the former hoping he can “trigger” the latter in the heat of the moment, and the latter relying heavily on his campaign experience, multiple reports show.

Biden has spent the last five days at Camp David in rural Maryland huddling with at least 16 current and former aides, according to The New York Times, while Trump, who spoke with Fox News over the weekend, has held “policy discussions” with allies to prep for what is expected to be an epic clash on the debate stage in CNN’s Atlanta studios.

An old movie theater and airplane hangar have been outfitted as a mock debate stage, where Biden, despite having varying hours and a non-rigid schedule, is preparing to go on the offensive against Trump on issues like immigration and abortion, as well as push back on claims — appearing to be supported by various videos — that he is confused and frail,” The Times reported.

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Biden’s mock debates have included his personal attorney, Bob Bauer, playing the role of Trump, the report said, while the team helping prepare him is being led by former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and includes National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, current White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, White House counselor Steve Richetti, as well as campaign officials Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, Ben LaBolt, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Cedric Richmond, Julie Chavez Rodriquez, Quentin Fulks, Michael Tyler and Rob Flaherty.

Former White House official Brian Deese is also expected to assist, according to the report.

Three sources familiar with the debate prep told NBC News that Biden advisors are studying the former president’s recent comments to see what topics might get under his skin most — all an effort to throw off what appears to be a more disciplined Trump as of late.

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Ron Klain, the former White House chief of staff (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

One source told the outlet the goal is to get “rally Trump” to come out, with another specifically pointing to Biden possibly attacking the former president’s 2020 election loss and subsequent actions that led to the Jan. 6 protest as a way to anger him by making him feel he’s being called a “loser.”

Those sources told NBC they believe attacking Trump’s post-2020 election actions could help boost Biden with independent voters who might be turned off by continued claims he actually won the election.

One Biden campaign official told the outlet the president has to walk a “fine line” because they want him to be seen as the “adult in the room.” The official also said Biden didn’t need to “goad” Trump into anything because the two men’s contrasting visions for the country would be clear enough without that.

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Former President Trump walks on stage to deliver the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference at the Washington Hilton on June 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Trump hit the campaign trail for a rally at Temple University in Philadelphia and the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. Fox spoke with him during his Philadelphia stop, where he described the “best strategy” as being around people who scream questions at him.

Trump jokingly asked the crowd during his rally what his approach should be on the debate stage.

“How should I handle him? Should I be tough and nasty, and just say, ‘you’re the worst president in history.’ Or should I be nice and calm and let him speak?” he asked.

Trump later told Fox he isn’t worried about Biden’s debate preparations and feels confident in his own ability.

“Well, I think if he prepares, he’ll be fine. Then he will forget it within about an hour after preparing. So, we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said.

The Fox News Channel will be airing the CNN Presidential Debate Simulcast at 9:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 27.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.