INJURED – 30 November 2012 – Kihei, Maui, Hawaii – snorkeller bitten

Thomas Floyd Kennedy recovers in a Maui hopsital after being bitten by shark while snorkelling

Thomas Floyd Kennedy, 61, was bitten on the thigh and lower left leg by a shark while snorkelling off Kihei, Maui, Hawaii. The incident happened around 9.40am about 250 metres offshore near Kihei.

The victim was treated on shore and taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center.

“Initially it didn’t hurt so much. It was mostly just fear of a second attack,” he was quoted as saying.

He said he was snorkelling with two others. They rode paddle boards to a spot more than 250 metres off the Kihei coastline.

Kennedy said he felt a tug and looked down to see his leg in the shark’s mouth.

“It released me. So I started swimming as fast as I could. I would guess I was a still a hundred yards from my board,” he said. “As I went further, I started to bleed. I could see a string of blood, which was my next concern.”

Crew from Wailea Canoe Club who were in the water at the time helped him to shore.

Kennedy and experts reckon it was 10 foot tiger shark that bit him.

Sources:
Maui News

Oregon Live

PIC Source:
Screen grab from Maui News video

INJURED – 4 November 2012 – waters off Waiehu Golf Course, Maui, Hawaii – spearfisherman attacked

Marcelino Riglos recovers in hospital after being bitten on the foot by a shark while spearfishing off Maui.

Marcelino Riglos, 30, was bitten on the foot by a 12-15 foot tiger shark while spearfishing with a friend in waters about 300 metres offshore of Waiehu Golf Course, Maui, Hawaii.

He was coming up for air when the shark clamped on his right foot and started shaking it from side to side.

“I started whacking it in the face with my hand,” he was quoted as saying. “My foot was dangling and blood was shooting all over the place.

“I thought I was going die out there. (It) was crazy.

With the help of his friend they tied a tourniquet with dive gear to stop the bleeding. They shed their floaters and spear guns, and swam back to shore which took a hair-raising 25 minutes.

He was taken to hospital where he received surgery for his wounds.

Sources:
Maui News

 

INJURED – 3 April 2012 – Alligator’s Rock surf spot, North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii – surfer bitten

Joshua Holley was bitten on the foot by a shark while surfing on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii

Joshua Holley, 28, was bitten on the left foot by a shark while surfing a spot called Alligator’s Reef, close to Leftovers and Chuns reef on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii. It is believed to have been a 10 foot tiger shark.

The incident happened around 12.30pm on Tuesday 3 April, 2012.

It is reported Holly was lying on his board waiting for a wave when a shark bit his foot.

Holly told TV media: “It was like this popping sensation on my foot. When I looked down I saw this huge dorsal fin and I saw the tail. And all of a sudden this shark comes around to like the front side of my board. I managed to get hold of his gills and hit it on the side of the nose and then he submerged.”

When he paddled in after the attack he was helped to shore by 2 strangers. He was treated on the beach and taken to Wahiawa General Hospital where he received 42 stitches.

It is reported he was due to be taken to Queens Medical Center to reattach two tendons.

Sources:
Hawaii News Now

PIC source:
Hawaii News Now

 

INJURED – 19 January 2012 – The Lagoon, Coral Bay, Western Australia – snorkeller attacked

David Pickering was bitten on the right forearm by a tiger shark while snorkelling at The Lagoon, near Coral Bay, Western Australia

Tour Operator David Pickering, 26, was bitten on the right forearm by what is believed to be a 3-metre tiger shark while guiding a group of snorkellers at The Lagoon, north of Coral Bay in Western Australia.

The incident happened about 100 metres from the shore at around 2pm on 19 January 2012.

According to press reports Pickering suffered tendon damage, but his injuries were not life threatening.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service, which flew in to pick him up, said he suffered some nasty lacerations to his forearm and that he was being taken to Perth for treatment. He was reported in stable condition.

According to press reports, another operator said he highly doubted it would be a tiger shark claiming it was more likely to be a reef shark that bit Pickering since there were thousands in the area.

No other details were immediately available.

Sources:
Perth Now
Sydney Morning Herald

PIC source:
Perth Now

FATAL – 19 September 2011 — Boucan Canot beach, Reunion – surfer attacked

Boucan Canot beach, Reunion. -- Photo credit: Philippe Amiot

Mathieu Schiller, 32, was dragged off his surfboard while surfing off Boucan Canot beach on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. The attack by a tiger shark reportedly lasted less than 30 seconds. His body was not recovered.

The incident happened on Monday 19 September 2011.

Schiller, a European team body boarding champion in 1995, was surfing with a group of surfers when the attack happened.

Witness report:

There were around 20 people in shallow water and about five surfers out deeper when it happened.

We saw the shark’s nose emerge and then the man just vanished. It was very sudden, then the animal just swam off.

According to other witness accounts the shark circled Schiller before moving in “with terrifying speed”.

Witness report:

I was waiting for a wave with my feet in the water. We saw the shark and the next thing I knew was that he screamed and raised his arm.

We then saw a cloud of red blood in the water where he had been.

Reports differ about what happened next. Some say the surfers then managed to get Schiller, who was suffering from a gaping wound in his leg, back onto his board. One  report says that the shark, which had become frenzied because of blood in the water, returned and hit the surfboard, knocking the victim back into the water. Another report says that a wave hit the board and Schiller fell off and disappeared beneath the surface.

Rescuers in a dinghy searching later for the body reported that a 4 metre bull shark had struck the dinghy trying to overturn it.

Sources:
The Local

EuroSport Yahoo

Mail Online

PIC Source:
The Local

INJURED – 11 September 2011 – Hula, Papua New Guinea – kite boarder attacked

Thomas Viot, 30, was bitten on the right leg by what he believed was a two-metre tiger shark while kite-boarding in surf on a reef at Hula, south of Port Moresby, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) capital on Sunday afternoon, 11 September 2011.

A friend of his at the scene said Viot was surfing in big waves about a kilometre offshore when something knocked him off his board and when he surfaced there was a bad cut on his right leg.

“The shark appeared to have launched itself out of the water at him to take his leg out,” he added.

He said the injury was “quite bad, with some deep wounds but does not appear to be crippling in that not much flesh was actually ripped away”.

 

Viot was quoted as saying: “I managed to ride back with my kite-surf. It was bleeding very badly and I don’t know how, but I managed to ride back.

“I lost a lot of blood and the leg needs to have surgery.”

Viot, a French diplomat, was kite-boarding with two friends when he was attacked. His friends managed to give him first aid during the two-hour trip to hospital in Port Moresby, from where he was evacuated to a hospital in Brisbane, Australia.

Viot, who had been in PNG for the past 2.5 years, said there were always “plenty” of sharks at the reef, but he did not see this one before it attacked.

Sources:
7 News
Courier Mail

FATAL – date unknown – Bahamas, Caribbean Sea – person unknown

In a gruesome reversal of many reports on this blog – this time the shark has been identified, but not the person.

According to media reports originating mostly from the Bahamian newspaper, Tribune242.com, a 12-foot Tiger shark was hooked about 35 miles south of New Providence over the weekend of 4-5 September 2010 near the Exuma chain of islands in the Caribbean by fishermen who were targeting grouper.

The Tiger shark that had human remains in its belly

Apparently, when the shark bit onto a grouper that was caught by the fisherman, they claim it regurgitated a human foot, which promted them to reel it in for closer inspection.

“We tied the rope around his tail fin, and pulled him towards the boat. We were going to cut the hook out of his mouth and let him go when he regurgitated a human foot — intact from the knee down,” a fisherman told Tribune242.com.

The shark was taken ashore and cut open at the Defence Force’s Coral Harbour base. In its belly Defence Force officers found the man’s right leg, two severed arms and a torso in two sections.

The victim is described as a “black man, of heavy build and heavy structure”.

“He had neither clothes nor any identifying marks,” one of the deep sea fishermen who hauled the gruesome catch on board his boat, was quoted as saying.

Human remains spill from Tiger shark's slit belly

The article said police were awaiting DNA results to tell them if the remains belong to one of three men who were reported missing at sea. They included 62-year-old Frank Brown Sr and 47-year-old Delton Newton, who disappeared after their boat experienced engine trouble in waters off the Port of Clifton Pier, Bahamas the week before this gruesome find. And a man was reported missing after he disappeared from a boat off Acklins Island, Bahamas, the week before.

However, an archivist at the Global Shark Attack File said the body of the man did not necessarily come from the Bahamas as Tiger sharks regularly migrated large distances and that undigested remain could stay in the stomach “for quite a while”.

According to a study by Rathburn and Rathburn’s on human remains found in a shark, published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, human parts can remain undigested in a shark’s belly between eight and 21 days.

Sources
Tribune242.com
NBC Miami

PIC source:
NBC Miami

INJURED – 23 July 2010 — Jacksonville Beach, North Florida, US – surfer attacked

Clayton Shultz, 20 was bitten on the left leg by what is thought to have been a tiger shark while he was surfing Jacksonville Beach, North Florida in the United States. He required more than 300 stitches to close the wound and repair torn tendons.

The incident happened on Friday, 23 July 2010.

Shultz said he didn’t get to see the size of the shark.

Another surfer helped get him to the shore where he was rushed to Shands Medical Center in Jacksonville.

He is quoted in various media as saying:

“I was hopping back on my board and the shark came up and grabbed my foot and shook his head a little bit, and I think he kind of realized that he was biting the wrong thing, so he let go.

“I had a good grip of my board, so I didn’t go down. It took me a second to process everything. I yelled out to another guy who was in the water, ‘Hey man, I just got bit by a shark.

“All I could really feel was teeth and tearing.

 “I popped right up and got on my board and lifted my foot out of the water. It was torn up real good.

Shultz underwent five and a half hours of surgery and received more than 300 stitches to close the wound and repair severed tendons in his foot.

Sources:
The Telegraph
TCPalm

FATAL – 3 February 2010 – Stuart Beach, Florida, United States – kiteboarder attacked

Stephen Schafer, 38, died after being attacked by several sharks while kiteboarding about 500 metres off Stuart Beach on the Atlantic coast of Florida in the US. The incident happened on Wednesday 3 February 2010.

He had 8 to 10 inch bite wounds on his right thigh and numerous teeth marks on his right and left buttocks. He also had bruising on the inside of his right arm and wounds on his hand that appeared to indicate he had tried to fight off the sharks.

A lifeguard on the beach witnessed the attack through binoculars from the beach and paddled out on a longboard to rescue Schafer.

The Associated Press reports:

Lifeguard Daniel Lund, 47, said he first spotted Schafer from his tower on the beach Wednesday afternoon and he could tell the kiteboarder was in trouble. He said Schafer was lying on his large kite.

Lund grabbed his long surfboard and paddled 20 minutes through 4- to 6-feet-high waves, to reach Schafer.

“I get to him, I’m probably within 20 yards or so from him, and there’s just a lot of blood in the water,” Lund said.

He could see several sharks circling nearby. He pulled the injured Schafer onto his board and began paddling back. Lund declined to describe Schafer’s injuries, but said he was conscious and speaking when they got to the beach and paramedics began treating him.

Schafer was taken to Martin Memorial North Medical Center where he succumbed to his wounds and died.

Judging by the size of the bite wounds experts believe an 8-9 foot long tiger or bull shark was responsible for the attack.  They also said that because the bite marks were similarly sized it indicated that a single shark attacked Schafer and added that it was common for other sharks to be drawn to blood and activity but not necessarily attack, which would corroborate Lund’s eye witness account of seeing several sharks circling him.

Sources:

Associated Press

ABC News

Orlando Sentinel

INJURED – Ponta d’Ouro, southern Mozambique – 22 December 2009 – swimmer attacked

Peter Fraser, 27, survived a shark attack at Ponta d’Ouro, Mozambique in southern Mozambique by fighting off the shark with his hands when it returned to attack him a second time. He received wounds to his back, right shoulder, right upper arm, forearm, both hand and his chest. The incident occurred around 4.30pm on Tuesday 22 December 2009.

According to the “Marine Report” blog:

Fraser was swimming in the bay and caught a wave to shore. As he was exiting the shallow murky water, he felt something bump his leg. Thinking it was his girlfriend playing the fool, he thought nothing of it. However, the inquisitive shark came back at him, biting him on the right knee and causing him to fall to his knees in the half a metre of water.

The shark came at him again from his right hand side, biting him beneath the right shoulder and again on his back on the right hand side. The worst of his injuries were sustained when he fended the shark off with both his hands.

Peter then exited the water unassisted, where he was treated by a female paramedic who was on holiday at the same location.

“The shark bit down on his hands, resulting in deep cuts across all of his knuckles on his left hand, almost severing through three tendons on the top of his fingers. His right hand sustained less severe lacerations.”

Fraser told media:

“During the attack I felt nothing. It wasn’t sore. Only when I got out of the water and saw the blood did I realise how serious it was.

He said the attack lasted only seconds.

“I first felt the thing bump my legs, but I couldn’t see anything in the dark water. Only later, when I hit its head away, I realised it was a shark.

“One always hears what you should do during an attack, but in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t really think of anything. I just wanted to get away.

“We weren’t in deep; the water was about shoulder height. It was just a case of, we were in their [the sharks’] world, not them in ours.”

Fraser’s girlfriend Nicolene Latsky said the attack “really took us by surprise because Peter was in such shallow water, the shark’s back and dorsal fin were completely out of the water”.

She said there were many other bather around with one man on a lilo right next to Fraser. She estimated there were between 100-150 people swimming in the bay.

Fraser  estimated the shark was 2 metres long. It has been tentatively identified as a juvenile tiger shark.

Fraser was initially taken to a local first aid post and from there was airlifted by helicopter to Manguzi at Kosi Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Thye could n’t traet him there and he was airlifted to Empangeni hospital, where they operated for four-and-a-half hours to close the wounds. He had a wound more than 20 cm long on his back.

Sources

News 24

Marine Report

Daily Telegraph

IOL

PIC Source:

News 24