Girl Sees A Shark Who Needs Help — Then Does What No One Else Would

"The waves were pounding it against the rocks but she wouldn’t give up."

In the eyes of many, sharks are seen as little more than mindless predators to be feared and avoided. But Ali Twachtman, on the other hand, knows that a shark's life is actually well worth saving.

In fact, recently she did just that.

Twachtman was on the coast of Block Island in Rhode Island earlier this month when she noticed a dogfish shark not far from shore. The animal was trapped in the churning water in desperate need of help. Others had noticed it too, but no one was apparently willing to intervene on the shark's behalf.

Then Twachtman stepped in.

"It was still alive and people were crowding around it," her father Erich Twachtman wrote online. "My daughter goes through the crowd, picks it up in an attempt to get it back into the water to save it. The waves were pounding it against the rocks but she wouldn’t give up."

Here's video of the heroic rescue.

"It took four attempts and my son eventually helped as well," Twachtman wrote. "They carried it 200 yards down the shore to a spot they could get it to deeper water. It worked and they saved it!"

Dogfish sharks are among the most common sharks in the world, so some might see little urgency in preserving the life of that single individual. But, as Ali Twachtman's actions prove, the shark's life was still worth saving because, in the end, it meant everything to him.