GAINESVILLE -- A spate of widely reported shark attacks last summer fueled
speculation that sharks were attacking humans more than ever, but a study
released Monday shows attacks for 2001 were actually down from the previous
year.
Researchers at the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File
recorded 76 unprovoked attacks worldwide in 2001, compared to 85 in 2000. The
number of people killed in shark attacks also dropped to five from 12 the
previous year--more...
OLOWALU, Hawaii (AP) --A Maui beach reopened Wednesday, one day
after a California man reported being bitten by a shark about 100 yards
offshore.
Thomas Holmes, 35, of Los Angeles, said he needed about 35 stitches for cuts
he suffered on his buttocks and thigh after the shark bit him once.
Holmes said he and his girlfriend were snorkeling in 40 to 50 feet of water
off Olowalu Beach when they saw what appeared to be a 6-foot tiger shark and
began swimming toward shore.
"I pulled my head out of the water and looked back," Holmes said
Wednesday. "He was four feet away and his mouth was open."
Police closed a more than one-mile stretch of shoreline after the incident.
Shark
attacks surfer
A surfer was launched more than two metres into the air when his board was hit
by a shark in ``a full-on attack" off the NSW North Coast yesterday
morning. Illawarra Mercury 24 Nov 2001
Fisherman catches shark, gets bitten
Victim, 44, suffered wounds but is in good condition
AP
MIAMI -- A fisherman who hooked a shark and hauled it into his boat was bitten
on his legs and hand after he and the shark tumbled into the water.
The man was in good condition Sunday with bite wounds and lacerations, said
Eunice Devereaux, an administrator at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
The fisherman caught the shark Saturday evening near Everglades National Park.
Then, while spraying himself with insect repellent, he slipped and fell off
the boat with the shark, which bit him, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
The name of the man, 44, was not released.
More than 40 shark attacks have been reported along the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts in recent months, two of them fatal, according to the the International
Shark Attack File, based at the University of Florida. The file counts only
unprovoked attacks, such as those to swimmers and surfers. It does not
consider bites suffered by fishermen as shark attacks because they involve
direct handling of the shark.
MAYPORT -- A sailor at the Mayport Naval
Station near Jacksonville is recovering from a shark bite over the Labor Day
weekend.
Navy officials said he was bitten on a
foot Sunday. The bite apparently was not serious. The man was treated at Baptist
Medical Center-Beaches and released.
The Navy did not release the man's name.
That brings to 29 the number of shark
attacks in Florida this year, and 41 in the United States, David Burgess,
director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida,
said Monday.
There have been 52 attacks worldwide.
The figures include attacks in Virginia
and North Carolina over the Labor Day weekend, Burgess said.
AVON,
North Carolina -- Experts say the reason for a fatal shark attack off a North
Carolina beach is simple: the victims were in the water at a time when sharks
feed.
"They were feeding, plain
and simple," David Griffin, director of the North Carolina Aquarium on
Roanoke Island, said yesterday.
Sergei Zaloukaev, 28, of Oakton,
Virginia, died of blood loss from multiple shark bites after the attack earlier
this week off the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. His girlfriend, Natalia
Slobodskaya, 23, was in critical but stable condition in a hospital in Norfolk,
Virginia. She lost her left foot and was severely wounded on her left buttocks,
hip and left hand.
It was the second fatal shark
attack of the year in the United States and the second of the Labour Day
weekend. The first occurred 220km away on Saturday in Virginia Beach when
10-year-old David Peltier was fatally mauled while surfing with his father and
two brothers.
Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore
created a task force yesterday to determine if any environmental changes
contributed to the attacks over Labour Day weekend.
David's friends, family and young
teammates gathered earlier this week at a football field in the Richmond,
Virginia, suburb of Glen Allen to remember him and retire his No 79 team jersey.
Griffin said a bull or tiger
shark was responsible for the North Carolina attack and a biologist added that
more than one shark might have attacked the couple.
George Burgess, director of the
Shark Attack File, said: "Once it grabbed, it maintained contact and
continued in an aggressive way.
"That would suggest to me
that the animal realised what it was doing and was going after what it viewed as
an appropriate food item." -- Sapa-AP
AVON, North Carolina (CNN) -- Officials
were still unsure Tuesday as to what provoked a rare shark attack here that left
a man dead and his girlfriend in critical condition.
Natalia Slobonskaya, 23, of Vienna,
Virginia was in stable but critical condition in a Norfolk, Virginia hospital
after losing her left foot and a significant amount of blood in Monday's attack.
Sergi Zaloukaev, 28 , from Arlington, Virginia died quickly after the shark
attacked the couple in waters off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
The Pitt County Medical Examiner confirmed
Tuesday that Zaloukaev died from massive loss of blood due to multiple shark
bites.
Doctors at Sentara Norfolk General
Hospital said Slobonskaya was "not completely conscious" after being
heavily sedated to alleviate the pain from her injuries.
"She just has a large dished-out area
on her hip and buttocks that is about 12 inches in diameter," said Dr.
Jeffrey Riblet, a trauma surgeon at Sentara. He said the bites on her left side
had gone "to the bone" and could affect her sciatic nerve, which
controls motion in the leg.
Riblet said she was placed on a ventilator
because of the heavy sedation and he expects her to be in the hospital for
"weeks to a month range."
Officials are certain that no other marine
animal could have caused the injuries, but "the jury's still out" on
whether there was one or two sharks, said David Griffin of the North Carolina
Aquarium.
The pair -- both Russian nationals -- were
with five friends from the Washington, D.C., area on holiday in the Outer Banks.
They were swimming together near a sandbar about 20 feet from shore when they
were attacked around 6 p.m., said Dorothy Toolan, a spokeswoman for Dare County
Emergency Medical Services.
The Outer Banks beaches remained open
Tuesday after no sharks were spotted in the area.
"They were coming in from the surf
and were about 20 feet from the water's edge, according to witnesses," said
Dr. Seaborn Blair, who was on call at the Health East Family Care Avon Medical
Center, an island medical facility.
As they were wading in water that was not
over their heads, both started screaming at once, witnesses told Blair. He said
he had not spoken to any witnesses who claimed to have seen the attack itself.
"It could have been more than one
shark ... the attack was very fast," Blair said.
Alerted by the screams, bystanders and
friends raced to aid the pair, dragging them from the water. The man had
suffered massive injuries to his lower extremities, he had lost a lot of blood,
and his heart had stopped, Blair said he was told.
Several sharks were spotted Tuesday by
National Park Service pilots just south of the area where the attack occurred.
However, the Outer Banks beaches remained open Tuesday.
"The park service pilot ... saw 3 to
5 sharks in the Hatteras Point area and 10 to 15 in the Hatteras Inlet area,
" said Mary Doll of the National Park Service. "That is not an unusual
number of sharks for this park."
Doll said park officials would confer with
state and national biologists to determine whether or not it was necessary to
close the beaches, which have remained open since Monday's attack.
The attack represents the second fatality
in the United States this year caused by shark bites and the third worldwide.
--CNN correspondent Patty Davis
contributed to this report
AVON,
North Carolina (CNN) -- A shark
attacked a couple in waters off Cape Hatteras on Monday evening, killing the man
and critically injuring a 22-year-old woman, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The woman suffered severe trauma and was
taken by helicopter from the Outer Banks to Sentera Norfolk General Hospital,
where she was in critical but stable condition after surgery Monday night.
Doctors said they could not describe
specific injuries, but said the woman was expected to survive despite losing a
great deal of blood.
The attack at North Carolina's Outer Banks
happened two days after the season's first fatal shark attack, which killed a
10-year-old boy. more
VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (CNN) -- A
10-year-old boy died early Sunday after being attacked by a shark in 4 feet of
water on Saturday.
David Peltier, of Richmond, was pronounced
dead at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters at 3:45 a.m. ET Sunday.
As a result of the attack, the main artery
in his left thigh was severed, resulting in significant blood loss, according to
a spokesman for Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.
David was visiting his father, Richard
Peltier, a resident of Virginia Beach, when the attack happened Saturday evening
around 6 p.m. ET. The father and son were in about 4 feet of water on a sandbar
approximately 50 yards offshore.
Witnesses of the attack say the father
could be seen hitting the shark over the head to try to get it to release his
son.
David was initially treated at Sentara
Virginia Beach General Hospital, and was then transferred to the trauma unit at
Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and then taken to Children's Hospital of The
King's Daughters where he died.
David's family released a statement
through the hospital saying they "appreciate the expressions of concern,
sympathy and support they have received from the community and asks that prayers
on their behalf continue."
"I speak for the entire city of
Virginia Beach when I say how terribly saddened I am by this horrible
accident," Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf said.
Shark attacks are exceptionally in
Virginia Beach, according to Maylon White, curator of the Virginia Marine
Science Museum. Officials believe Saturday's shark attack was the first in the
Virginia Beach area in some 30 years.
In Florida, there have been 28 shark
attacks this year. One of the Florida attacks severed the arm of 8-year-old
Jessie Arbogast and left him in a light coma.
White noted that sharks in Virginia Beach
waters are typically small varieties, such as sandbar, sand tiger and
hammerhead. Rarely found are larger types such as tiger and bull sharks, he
said. It's not known what type of shark attacked David Peltier.
In order to prevent further attacks in
Virginia Beach waters this weekend, Mayor Oberndorf has asked city public safety
officials to take all possible precautions to safeguard swimmers from shark
attacks.
EMS will have boats patrolling all ocean
waters and vehicles checking the oceanfront from the beaches.
All lifeguards will be briefed on
searching for signs of sharks prior to beginning their watches. At any sign of
shark, lifeguards will require swimmers to leave the water.
EMS officials urge swimmers to be alert
and use caution in swimming in the ocean, especially in non-guarded areas.
Channel
2 Web Page Posted: 3:55 p.m. EDT August 30, 2001 Updated: 8:25
p.m. EDT August 30, 2001
COQUINA BEACH, Fla. -- Swimmers
were ordered out of the water off a popular Gulf Coast beach Thursday afternoon,
the day after a shark there attacked an Illinois woman.
Kristi Herzberg of Highland, Ill., was bitten on the arm by a small shark off
Coquina Beach in Manatee County Wednesday. She suffered small punctures to the
inside of her right elbow and a gouge with slashes on the underside of her lower
arm. She was in waist-deep water, about 25 feet from shore when the attack
occurred.
Herzberg's husband saw the shark and said
that it looked like a torpedo heading toward her.
The attack on Herzberg was the 28th in
Florida waters so far this year, according to the International Shark Attack
File. None of the attacks have been fatal, and most have been cases of single
bite-and-releases by small sharks that mistook a swimmer for tasty baitfish.
Around noon Thursday, the sighting of a
blacktip shark feeding on silver mullet near Coquina Beach prompted authorities
to evacuate a mile-long stretch of water.
Posted:
12:04 p.m. EDT August 30, 2001
Updated: 8:24 p.m. EDT August 30, 2001
NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- With few
sharks spotted Thursday, Volusia County beach officials reopened the final
half-mile stretch of shoreline south of Ponce Inlet.
The popular surfing area has been closed because of a series of shark bites
which left nearly a dozen beachgoers wounded over a two-week period.
Beach officials will continue to count
sharks by helicopter over the holiday weekend to make sure that the waters are
safe. During the closure, dozens of sharks were seen near the coast, beach
officials said.
Posted: 9:40 a.m. EDT
August 27, 2001
Updated: 6:58 p.m. EDT August 27, 2001
NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- A
69-year-old New Smyrna man has become the 10th shark bite victim in as many
days.
William Goettel was bitten on the foot
late this afternoon, but the wound isn't severe. He was in four feet of water at
the 27th Avenue approach, several miles south of the closed area. Nobody,
including the victim, saw the shark.
However, beach patrol said that the bite
is consistent with a shark bite. Goettel indicated that he had a medical
background and would go home and bandage it himself.
Earlier Monday, the beach patrol again
spotted sharks in a section of water near the inlet. That area has been closed
to the public since late Wednesday afternoon. One surfer decided to go in the
water anyway. The beach patrol warned him to come out, but he didn't. He could
have been arrested, but beach patrol officials said that, knowing sharks were
out there, they weren't going to put their officers at risk to make the arrest.
Beach officials in Volusia County are
continuing to keep a close watch on sharks off the coast.
Officials decided early Monday afternoon
to keep a 1-mile stretch of New Smyrna Beach south of Ponce Inlet closed to
swimmers, but it does not appear that they'll enforce the closure.
There have been 19 shark bites so far this
year, more than the previous record of 18 in 1996.
A popular stretch of New Smyrna
Beach remains closed this weekend after another person has been bitten by a
shark. This one happened about a mile south of the strip of beach that has been
closed to swimmers all week.
Ben Gibbs says he didn't see the
shark until it had already bitten him. Gibbs was driven by his friends to
Florida Hospital Altamonte to be treated. This attack makes for the ninth one in
the last week.
By Ludmilla Lelis | Sentinel
Staff Writer Posted
August 23, 2001
DAYTONA
BEACH -- Another shark bite Wednesday prompted nervous beach officials to take
the unusual step of declaring a section of Volusia County beach off limits
today.
Volusia Deputy Beach Chief Joe Wooden said the half-mile stretch in New Smyrna
Beach, just south of the Ponce Inlet jetty, will remain off-limits until the
risk of shark attacks subsides.
The
order came after a surfer was attacked Wednesday, becoming the eighth shark-bite
victim in five days and the 18th Volusia County victim this year. Volusia leads
the world in shark bites this year, as it usually does.
Lowell Lutz, a 17-year-old surfer, was bitten on the left foot about
4:15
p.m., Wooden said. Lutz was treated at the scene and drove home, but the
incident prompted officials to close the beach for the rest of the day and
today.
Beach patrol officials warned surfers Wednesday that sharks were sighted and
they would be surfing at their own risk, but some remained.
Closing the waters to surfing and swimming for short spells during the course of
the day is common, but the beach patrol hasn’t closed any beach for an entire
day before, Wooden said.
Safety
is the primary concern, but Wooden said the rash of shark attacks has been a
publicity nightmare.
Beach patrol officials consulted with other county staff before making the call
to close the beach today. He said the ban on swimming and surfing near Ponce
Inlet may extend into Friday, depending on the shark activity.
Blacktip sharks, spinner sharks, and even the occasional bull shark swim by the
inlet to feed on schools of bait fish all the time.
Ludmilla Lelis can be reached at llelis@ orlandosentinel.com or 386-253-0964.
On Tuesday(8/21),
meanwhile, Omar Oyarce, 27, of Altamonte Springs was bitten in the right thigh
when he re-entered the water after the beach had been cleared for a short time
because of lightning. Beach Patrol officials said Oyarce drove himself to the
hospital, but his injuries weren't serious and he was released.
NEW
SMYRNA BEACH, Florida (AP) -- Almost half of the world's shark attacks this
year have occurred along a single stretch of Florida's coastline long considered
one of the finest surfing spots in the state.
While
the area's pristine beaches and good waves attract surfers, experts say the
green waters teeming with baitfish -- ballyhoo, mullet, pilchards -- are what
draw the predators.
"It's
a smorgasbord of food coming back and forth," said George Burgess, director
of the International Shark Attack File in Gainesville.
Six
people were bitten by sharks off New Smyrna Beach over the weekend, raising to
15 the total of attacks along more than 50 miles of Volusia County's beaches
this year, Burgess said. The Volusia County Beach Patrol has a higher figure --
17.
Forty
shark attacks have occurred worldwide since January. Twenty-nine of them have
been in the United States.
Last
year, there were 79 shark attacks worldwide, 51 in the United States -- 34 in
Florida and 12 in Volusia County, Burgess said. The county is now on track to
surpass its record of 18 shark attacks, set in 1996. --more
DAYTONA
BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- Sharks
attacked three surfers off Florida's upper east coast Sunday, a few miles from
where three men were bitten the previous day.
The day's first attack occurred about
11:30 a.m. when a shark bit the foot of a 17-year-old girl about 100 yards off
the beach at Wilbur-By-The-Sea south of Daytona Beach, said Joe Wooden, deputy
chief of the Daytona Beach Patrol.
Wooden said the victim, whose name was not
released, was bitten as she was riding a surfboard; she was taken to Halifax
Medical Center in Daytona Beach where she was treated and released.
"She caught a wave, she came off her
board, she was going to say something to me, and she screamed and she started
yelling," said Scott Love, the girl's boyfriend. "I jumped off my
board, threw it to shore and went to her."
Sharks bit two other surfers -- a
32-year-old man and another 17-year-old girl -- around 1:15 p.m. Sunday off New
Smyrna Beach, about 15 miles south of the morning attack, Wooden said. Both were
taken to Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach for treatment.
The man was bitten on the right foot and the girl was bitten on the left
calf, said Wooden.
The man, who identified himself as Bobby
Kurrek, was treated and released. He
said he saw about two dozen sharks swimming around him when he was bitten.
"Two of them just came at me as fast as they could and hit my surfboard,
went under my surfboard, came from behind and pulled me off," Kurrek said.
A hospital spokeswoman said the female would require surgery on her left
calf. "It is not a life threatening injury," the spokeswoman said.
"She's in good condition."
The girl's father, Ted Chapman, said his daughter Becky felt something hit
her in the back just before the bite.
"She knew that something had a hold of her leg, and she reached down and
felt the shark and started punching it," he said.
The attacks came a day after three men were bitten by sharks during a surfing
competition at Ponce Inlet, on the Atlantic Ocean between Daytona Beach and New
Smyrna Beach and about three miles from where a shark bit Sunday's first victim.
Jeff White, 20, and Dylan Feindt, 19, were treated for wounds on their feet
from shark bites. Jason Valentine, 20, underwent surgery for a hand injury.
The event, sponsored by the Conference of the National Scholastic Surf
Association, continued Sunday but was moved about one mile south of the Saturday
location.
The Saturday attacks forced beach closings for about two hours. Wooden said
none of those attacked Sunday was involved in the competition.
Leon Johnston, the association's director, said surfers on Saturday saw
black-tip sharks up to 6 feet long and bull sharks reaching 8 feet.
Of the 34 reported shark attacks worldwide this year, 14 have been in Volusia
County, said Wooden. "We're pretty much keeping an eye on things,"
said Wooden.
On Thursday, scores of sharks were spotted swimming in the Gulf of Mexico
near Lido Key off Sarasota, Florida. Two days earlier, a similar school was seen
in shallow waters off Anclote Key, north of Tampa.
In July, a Mississippi boy's arm was bitten off by a shark at Gulf Islands
National Seashore near Pensacola in northwest Florida. Doctors were able to
reattach the arm, and the boy is recovering at home where he remains in a light
coma.
By Rene Stutzman and Jason Garcia | Sentinel
Staff Writers Posted
August 19, 2001
Sharks upstaged a surfing contest Saturday in New Smyrna Beach, nipping three
surfers and causing a one-mile stretch of beach to be closed temporarily.
Two competitors were treated at a hospital, but no one was seriously injured,
said Joe Wooden, deputy chief of Volusia County’s Beach Patrol.
"I got my hand mangled," said Jaison
Valentin, 19, of New Smyrna Beach. He said the shark bit down as he paddled
through the surf. Its teeth severed tendons and felt like "a bunch of
knives coming in through my hand," Valentin said.
Jeff White, 20, also of New Smyrna Beach, said the shark that grabbed him was 5
to 6 feet long. "It put some nice gashes in my foot," White said.
"It just felt like an immediate pressure on my foot, and actually, the pain
was not too terrible."
Both men were taken to Fish Memorial Hospital. A third surfer whose name
authorities did not know was treated at the scene for a bite to his foot.
Fourteen of the more than 30 shark attacks reported worldwide this year have
occurred in Volusia, Wooden said. None of the attacks were fatal.
The inlet of New Smyrna Beach, site of the Saturday attacks, is "where the
majority of all of our bites are," Wooden said. "It’s one of the top
surfing areas."
It’s also an area with lots of bait fish, an attraction for hungry sharks. On
Friday, the surf in the inlet also kicked up, making the water murkier and
sharks more difficult to see, Wooden said.
"What happens is they are feeding on the bait fish that are coming in on
the south side of the inlet," Wooden said. "The young sharks get into
the wave action. They get disoriented in the waves, and they bite down on
anything that moves."
On Saturday, about 200 surfers paddled out into that mix for the National
Scholastic Surfing Association competition.
The first bite was reported at about 10 a.m. An off-duty lifeguard dressed the
wound, and the unidentified man disappeared, Wooden said.
Shortly after Valentin was bitten, the Beach Patrol decided to close the beach,
but before lifeguards could do so, White was attacked, Wooden said.
The beach was closed for about an hour, and when it reopened, lifeguards let
swimmers only back in. They moved the surf competition down the beach about a
mile, Wooden said. The tournament will resume there today.
Wooden was not sure what type of sharks were responsible but speculated it was
4- to 6-foot blacktip or spinner sharks, which typically feed in the inlet.
One of the surfers, Erie Peeples, 31, of New Smyrna Beach, said that in a
two-hour period he saw a large number of small blacktips swimming in front of
people along the beach in ankle-deep water. About 100 to 150 yards offshore, he
started seeing bull sharks, the same type responsible for the devastating attack
on a boy near Pensacola this summer.
"It was pretty crazy. I thought for sure I was getting bit. I mean, because
they were all around us," Peeples said. "These were big, round, fat,
black bull sharks . . . Everybody was scrambling for a wave to get in."
Schools of sharks spotted off Tarpon Springs last week and recent attacks on
swimmers in Pensacola and the Bahamas have focused national attention on dangers
in the surf, but experts insist that shark attacks are not on the increase.
Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or
407-324-7294.
Jason Garcia can be reached at jrgarcia@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5926.
CNN August 17, 2001 Posted: 10:36 AM EDT (1436 GMT)
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A shark-attack victim, flown from the Bahamas to Miami
late Thursday, was in good condition Friday at Jackson Memorial Hospital,
officials said.
The 43-year-old man, who said he was bitten on the left calf while
snorkeling, is the second shark-bite victim from Freeport in two weeks.
Officials declined to name the man, though the general manager of
the air-ambulance service that brought the victim to the mainland identified him
as an American.
The victim was treated at the same hospital as Krishna Thompson,
36, a New York banker who was attacked by a shark August 4 while swimming in the
surf off Freeport. Thompson, in the Bahamas with his wife to celebrate their
10-year wedding anniversary, lost his lower left leg.
The latest shark attack highlights a summer in which the finned
predators have figured prominently in news headlines and tourists' fears.
A bull shark cruising in knee-deep waters off Gulf Islands National
Seasore near Pensacola, Florida, ripped the right arm off 8-year-old Jessie
Arbogast on July 6. The boy's uncle retrieved the arm, which surgeons reattached
in a 12-hour operation. The Ocean Springs, Mississippi, boy was released from
the hospital this week.
In May, a surfer off Jacksonville, Florida, told physicians a shark
attacked him, biting his foot twice before swimming away. Also recently, a
48-year-old man was bitten on the leg while surfing near Santa Rosa Island off
the Florida Panhandle.
Schools of sharks also massed in the shallows of the Gulf of Mexico
just north of Tampa, Florida, earlier this week, attracting throngs of
researchers, tourists and reporters.
Puzzled scientists were at a loss to explain why so many sharks,
most of them relatively harmless blacktips and nurse sharks, had congregated so
suddenly. They were equally nonplussed when the fish dispersed two days later as
quickly as they had gathered.
The flurry of sightings and attacks also underscores the release
this summer of Michael Capuzzo's "Close to Shore," a book detailing a
series of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore in 1916.
Years later, that event inspired Peter Benchley to write
"Jaws," which became the 1975 blockbuster film that prompted
vacationers everywhere to consider a week in the mountains instead of at the
seaside.
Hundreds of sharks have been sighted off central Florida's west coast, prompting
officials to warn swimmers and scientists to ponder what is luring them there.
Bull
sharks, hammerheads and nurse sharks were among those spotted by sheriff's
marine patrols in the shallow Gulf of Mexico waters off Pasco County, north-west
of Tampa, officials said today.
Some
of the sharks are up to three metres long.
Pasco County Sheriff's
Office spokesman Kevin Doll said the sharks were first sighted yesterday. No-one
has been bitten.
Terri Behling, a spokeswoman for Mote
Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, said it is too early to speculate what might be
luring the sharks.
Experts, who may visit the area as early
as tomorrow, first need to determine the sharks' species and size, she said.
Behling
said it is not unusual for sharks to swim up and down the gulf coastline,
following tarpon. But a congregation of different species is unusual, she said.AP
Update
article (click) The Associated Press (Orlando Sentinal) Posted August 6, 2001, 9:09 AM EDT
MIAMI -- A Long Island man had his left
leg amputated by surgeons in Miami after he was attacked by a shark in the
Bahamas over the weekend.
Krishna Thompson, a 36-year-old Wall
Street banker, was vacationing with his wife in Freeport, Grand Bahama, to
celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary."Instead, we got this
nightmare," Ave Maria Thompson told The Miami Herald for Monday editions.
The couple flew to the Bahamas on Friday
and checked into their room at Our Lacaya resort. The next morning Thompson went
for a swim in the ocean.
"He kissed me goodbye, said he'd be right back," Mrs. Thompson said.
Shortly after, Mrs. Thompson said she got a phone call from the hotel staff
telling her that her husband needed her.
She said she found him lying on the sand, his legs covered with towels and his
face ashen.
"He was just swimming off the beach when something, a shark, grabbed his
leg and started pulling him down," Mrs. Thompson said her husband told her
by scribbling on a notepad at a hospital. "He kept punching and punching.
He has cuts on his hands because of that."
She said her husband managed to free himself and swam to shore using only his
right leg because the other was mangled.
Onlookers helped him to shore, where he collapsed. He wrote his room number into
the sand before he passed out.
"He knew that was the only way they were going to find me in time,"
his wife said. "He is so brave. To fight off a shark and then think to do
that."
Thompson was in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Monday
morning, said spokeswoman Victoria Zambrano.
Thompson was first taken to a Bahamian hospital, where he went into cardiac
arrest and had to receive blood transfusions, the Herald reported.
He was transferred Saturday night to Jackson's Ryder Trauma Center in Miami.
Surgeons there worked on Thompson, ultimately having to amputate his leg, just
above the knee.
Mrs. Thompson said that though her husband seems alert, doctors told her there
was a possibility of brain damage and other complications due to the loss of
blood.
PENSACOLA,
Florida (CNN) -- A man is in good condition Monday after undergoing surgery
for what he described as a shark bite that happened off Florida, just miles from
where a young boy was nearly killed in a separate shark attack.
Michael Waters, 48, was surfing when he
was bitten Sunday, he said. Waters is expected to be released later Monday, the
hospital said.
Another man was treated
and released, after being hurt in another shark encounter Sunday off Florida's
east coast.
Waters said he was bitten in the waters
off the coast of the Florida Panhandle, near Pensacola, about 2:30 p.m., just
miles from where a shark bit off 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast's arm and tore into
his leg, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office reported.
"From what the doctors say, it's
consistent with a shark bite," Lt. Bob Clark of the Escambia County
Sheriff's Office said Monday.
Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola could
not confirm that it was a shark bite, until officials spoke to the doctors,
hospital spokesman Mike Burke said. Waters had surgery on his foot and heel
Sunday to repair blood vessels, Burke explained.
The Pensacola News-Journal quoted the
man's daughter-in-law, Claressa Selva, 20, as saying the shark was drawn to
shore by a shore fisherman who was throwing out bait in the swimming area.
Clark could not confirm that report,
saying he believes the shark -- like many others -- was drawn to the area by
pods of "bait fish" or smaller fish, feeding in the area.
Selva told the Pensacola News-Journal that
the shark bit Waters' ankle and pulled him under the water.
"Thank God he knew how to react. He
just started hitting the shark with his surfboard," she said. "We're
all still in shock right now, it hasn't quite hit us. We saw everything that
happened to that poor little boy, and we just never thought that was something
that could happen to our family."
(Jacksonville)
At the same time, an 18-year-old man using
a boogie board off Fernandina Beach on Florida's east coast, near the Georgia
state line, suffered "small-to-moderate lacerations" to his right foot
when a shark swam past, said Capt. John Hailey, of Nassau County Fire Rescue.
"He said he saw an object about three
feet long roll and splash, and then his foot started hurting," Hailey said.
The man, whose name was not released, identified the object as a shark.
Officials believe the shark's mouth was
open and the teeth dragged across the man's leg, Hailey said.
The 18-year-old, who was vacationing with
his parents from Cincinnati, Ohio, was taken by ambulance to Shands-Jacksonville
Hospital. A spokeswoman there said he was treated and released.
In Escambia County, Waters told
authorities he was paddling his board about 100 yards from shore to catch a
wave, his left leg dangling in the water. He said he saw a school of small fish
and a "dark shadow" just before his ankle was bitten.
He paddled back to shore where he called
out for help. He was then taken by ambulance to Sacred Heart Hospital.
Authorities estimated Sunday's incident
happened about six to eight miles from the area Jessie was attacked. The boy was
wading in knee-deep water at the Gulf Islands National Seashore on July 6 when
he was mauled by a 7-foot bull shark, which tore off his arm and bit a large
portion of his thigh.
Jessie was in critical but stable
condition Sunday at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital after his arm was
reattached at Baptist Hospital, also in Pensacola, a statement said.
Despite the proximity of the incidents,
Clark said authorities had no plans to issue official warnings about sharks in
the water.
"There are sharks all over, up and
down the whole entire Gulf Coast," Clark said. "How do you warn
someone that there are sharks out there all the time anyway?"
Clark said swimmers and surfers must be
aware that sharks tend to swim in the waters, sometimes very close to shore.
He said Sunday's incident highlights some
danger signs: The surfer was in murky water, and he was swimming near a school
of bait fish, a primary source of food for sharks.
"If you do encounter
that, it would be wise probably to swim elsewhere," Clark said. "Just
be mindful of your and their environment."
PENSACOLA
BEACH, Florida (AP) -- A marine
scientist said Saturday he doesn't think the shark that bit off an 8-year-old
boy's arm attacked the youngster just because it was hungry.
"Something most likely was in the
water at the same time ... normally food, chum or bait fish," Erich Ritter,
a senior scientist for the Global Shark Attack File, part of the Shark Research
Institute in Princeton, New Jersey.
Ritter believes Jessie Arbogast was in
very murky water at dusk and that the youngster probably surprised the 7-foot,
200-pound bull shark.
"There was no way you could've seen
the shark and there was no way the shark could see the boy," Ritter said.
Jessie was attacked at the Gulf Islands
National Seashore on July 6, losing his right arm and suffering a deep wound to
his right leg. He lost nearly all his blood, which caused damage to his organs,
including his kidneys. Surgeons reattached his arm and he was scheduled for a
skin graft on his leg on Monday.
He remained in a light coma and in
critical condition at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital, doctors said.
"We are hopeful for a very good
recovery," Dr. Ben Renfroe said Friday during a hospital news conference.
"We are very excited about the progress he has made so far."
Ritter said he was confident he'll soon
know what caused the shark to attack Jessie, by piecing together witness
accounts of the attack, studying the scene and talking to the boy's doctors.
"The shark wound tells the
story," said Ritter, who has spent 10 years studying sharks. "How hard
the animal bites gives us a good idea about intention."
Ritter wants to interview Jessie's uncle,
Vance Flosenzier of Mobile, Alabama, the man who wrestled the shark out of the
water.
"He's the only person who can tell me
how the shark behaved right after the bite," he said.
"If the animal moves around, he's
searching, meaning the boy was just in his pattern. But if the animal was
lethargic, that tells you basically he just happened to grab the boy's arm; the
animal was confused."
Ritter wants to learn what happened to
lessen the risk of similar attacks.
"Once we narrow it down ... then
we've won the battle because then we know what has to be done," Ritter
said. "If we cannot nail it down to an external factor ... then we have a
problem."
Copyright
2001 The Associated Press.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,
or redistributed.
Boy
`almost completely bled out' By Associated Press |
Posted July 7, 2001, 11:34 PM EDT
PENSACOLA -- An
8-year-old boy was in critical condition Saturday after surgeons reattached one
of his arms, retrieved from the gullet of a shark wrestled ashore by the child's
uncle.
Three surgeons and a support team
worked 11 hours in shifts to save the boy's right arm. It had been bitten off
between the elbow and shoulder by what authorities think was a bull shark during
an attack about 9:30 p.m. Friday.
Surgeons also repaired damage to
the boy's right leg, which lost about a third of its lateral muscle mass.
Doctors said it was too soon to
say whether the boy may have suffered neurological damage because of the severe
blood loss.
"Amazingly, this was a clean
cut," said Dr. Ian Rogers, a plastic surgeon who participated in the
operation.
The shark attacked the boy as he
swam at the Fort Pickens area of the Gulf Islands National Seashore in the
Florida Panhandle.
The boy's uncle dragged the
7-foot shark to shore, where a ranger pried open its mouth with his police baton
while a lifeguard pulled out the limb with forceps, National Park Service
officials said.
"A ranger shot it in the
head three times, which was enough to get the shark to loosen his jaws,"
Ranger John Bandurski said.
The boy's parents declined
comment and did not want to identify the boy or themselves.
Chief Ranger J.R. Tomasovic said
the boy had gone to the beach with an aunt and uncle, who were not identified,
although a family member said they were from Mobile, Ala.
Immediately after the attack,
relatives and emergency crews struggled to revive the boy about 250 yards west
of Langdon Beach at the Gulf Islands preserve.
"It looked like the shark
had been feeding on him," said tourist Guy Ogburn, 44, of Nashville.
"When I first got to him,
his arm was off, his leg was wide open and there was no blood coming out,"
said Ogburn. "The aunt was giving him CPR, and the man was pumping on his
heart."
The boy was airlifted to the
hospital, while his arm was taken by ambulance.
Dr. Jack Tyson, a general
surgeon, said the boy had no pulse or blood pressure when he arrived at the
hospital.
"I think he had almost
completely bled out," Tyson said.
The International Shark Attack
File lists 79 confirmed shark attacks, 10 of them fatal, worldwide last year.
That was the highest yearly total
in the four decades since unprovoked shark encounters have been recorded.
Thirty-four of those attacks,
nearly half, took place in Florida.
Victim, 44, suffered wounds but is in good condition
