KSDK.com is reporting that 12-year-old Nicholas Vollser was bitten by a shark last Thursday (July 7) off of Matagorda Island’s Sunday Beach near Port O’Connor, Texas.

The boy’s father, Cecil Vossler, told KSDK that a bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) bit his son’s left. A friend (identified as Mark Constien by the Star Telegram) pulled the boy from the water and he was taken by boat to a helicopter, which flew him to Houston’s Memorial Hermann – Texas Medical Center. Nicholas has undergone “several surgeries” according to the report, and has at least three more to be performed.