Deep Dark Water - Shark Attack StoriesIts Not Safe.               Shark Attack Chronicles.

Date: August 29, 2008 11 AM
Location: New Smyrna Beach Florida
Shark: Unidentified: probably a Bull Shark or Black Tip

Spending his off-duty time getting in some surfing at New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a lifeguard was bitten on the left foot in yet another shark attack in the Volusia County area. This was exactly the same area that another shark attack occurred just the day before.

This marks the 19th incident this year in Volusia County. The county’s Beach Patrol often warns of the higher concentration of sharks in the waters when bait fish are in the area. When there are pelicans diving into the water and dolphins in the area, these are all indications that swimmers should probably leave the water.

Date: August 23, 2007 Late-night
Location: Sarasota Bay, Florida
Shark: Bull Shark

Andrea Lynch was on a boating trip with friends off of the coast of Sarasota, FL when she and some others decided to go for a late-night swim. A 7ft-long bull shark interrupted the fun. As she lay on her back in the ocean the shark anchored its teeth into her side, sinking them into her hips and ribs.

“I was screaming. There was blood all over.”

The shark shook her, and then released quickly, allowing Andrea to race back to the boat. Apparently, since it was night her friends didn’t see the attack and thought she was joking, refusing to believe that a shark had attacked her.

“I reached back with my hand”, she said, “and felt these gashes on me, and there was blood running down my body and pooling into the boat.” She ended up with 17 puncture wounds several of them just narrowly missing her lungs.

She later joked, “Either it didn’t like the taste of human or it thought I was too bony.”

Date: June 21, 2008 9 AM
Location: West Cove Catalina Island Southern California
Shark: 15 Foot Great White

It was a family day the Pereira family would never forget! Bettina, her husband Andrew, and their three children took a fishing boat to the West Cove of Catalina Island on June 21st, 2008.

Betty decided to take a kayak out around that part of the cove. She was in 50 feet deep water, which quickly dropped off to nearly 500 feet beyond her starting location. Suddenly she felt what seemed like a boat slam into the back of her kayak!

Looking around, she turned and saw the huge body of a shark coming up fast from underneath her kayak. The force of the shark’s next impact threw her and the kayak into the air, Bettina landing directly on the sharks back, feet first. She pushed off of the shark’s body and started racing towards the family’s boat.

Later Bettina said that all she could think about as she headed for the boat was that her family was going to watch her get killed by a shark. She was eventually picked up by another boat in the area whose crew had witnessed the event. They said she was in giddy with a certain euphoria over still being alive.

Sources: sharkattacksurvivors.com, lionofjudah

Returning the Favor ?

One of the worst things about a fatal shark attack is the how the helpless victim must feel. A life has been needlessly taken away in a random act by a nearly mindless killer. But can we really get revenge?

Really, how do you avenge a shark attack ? And what’s the point ? And your first task is nearly impossible — finding your shark. Sharks are known for traveling great distances, sometimes over 40 miles in a day. The chances that you’ll find the killer in the same area are extremely poor. Fishing for the culprit is extremely unlikely to be effective.

The movie Jaws characterizes a shark with a personality. A hunting machine gone slightly haywire, this fictional shark is bent towards seeking out human flesh as its prey. It seems as if this film has framed the real sharks as killers with attitudes.

Humans are generally attacked by mistake or out of curiosity. In fact, a shark that attacks a human is unlikely to do it again. Maybe we just don’t taste very well! Who really thinks that we should go out and hunt down a shark after it attacks someone? To me, that borders on absurdity.

Date: April 28, 2008 Afternoon
Location: Pacific Coast of Mexico
Shark: Tiger Shark

A 24-year-old surfer and bartender, Adrian Ruiz, from San Francisco, California was on a surfing trip to the Pacific Coast of Mexico with a good friend, Brent Helms. They could never have expected the unfortunate ending.

The two surfers actually saw the Tiger shark in the water before the attack, joking to themselves about keeping their hands and toes out of the surf. Shark attacks are so rare in the area, and in general, that they couldn’t have thought it would target one of them. In fact, several of the residents in the area remarked that a shark attack hasn’t happened there before. Other sources say that no one has been killed by a shark on Mexico’s Pacific Coast in over thirty years.

Ruiz was hit in the thigh by the shark, which took a large bite which reached from the hip to the knee, completely exposing the femur. His friend dragged him to the shore where he attempted CPR on Ruiz, but it was too late. Ruiz never regained consciousness due to the severity of the would and the lack of medical help in the area.

I know I’m going to die …

Adrian said he knew he was going to die, according to his boss and the owner of the nightclub where Ruiz worked. Most people that came into contact with him loved him, though, and one coworker nicknamed him “smiley”. Apparently he was a great friend and seemed to be a fun-loving, free-spirited soul who loved life.

Surprisingly, Mexican authorities strung up nets in the area in a vain attempt to try and catch the predator. This has ignited a small controversy with environmentalists who are worried about indiscriminate killing of all kinds of marine species in the area. Can you really even hope to catch the same shark?

Sources: San Francisco Chronicle, NY Daily News, Timesonline.com