Teenager dies in Florida shark attack
Sat Jun 25, 2005 06:25 PM ET
MIAMI (Reuters) - A 14-year-old girl died after being bitten by a large shark on Saturday while she swam with a friend in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida panhandle, police said.
The girl, a visitor from Louisiana, has not been identified pending notification of her relatives. She was on a boogie board near a sandbar about 200 yards offshore near Destin, Florida, when the two saw the shadowy shape of the shark in the water, said officials with the Walton County Sheriff's Office.
Witnesses told police the shark was feeding on a large school of fish at the time.
The shark bit one of the girls on her lower body and dragged her under water.
"There was a surfer in the area who saw the attack and went to the aid of the young girl," said Walton County Sheriff's Lt. Frank Owens. "He got the girl up on his board and brought her toward shore. He put himself at risk to help the girl."
The teenager was treated at the shore but had lost a lot of blood, Owens said. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The other girl, also 14 years old, narrowly escaped injury.
Thirty miles of Walton County beaches, packed with people trying to escape the summer heat, were shut down after the attack, which happened just before noon.
Fatal shark attacks are rare. There were seven reported deaths as a result of 61 unprovoked shark attacks recorded worldwide last year, according to the International Shark Attack File, a group at the Florida Museum of Natural History that tracks attacks.
There were four fatal attacks in 2003, three in 2002 and four in 2001, the group's statistics show.
Thirty shark attacks were reported in the United States last year. Florida, which routinely records the highest number in the country, had just 12 last year, down from an average of more than 30 in each of the four previous years. None was fatal.
The number was lower than recent years in part because a spate of hurricanes kept people out of Florida's coastal waters.
Sat Jun 25, 2005 06:25 PM ET
MIAMI (Reuters) - A 14-year-old girl died after being bitten by a large shark on Saturday while she swam with a friend in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida panhandle, police said.
The girl, a visitor from Louisiana, has not been identified pending notification of her relatives. She was on a boogie board near a sandbar about 200 yards offshore near Destin, Florida, when the two saw the shadowy shape of the shark in the water, said officials with the Walton County Sheriff's Office.
Witnesses told police the shark was feeding on a large school of fish at the time.
The shark bit one of the girls on her lower body and dragged her under water.
"There was a surfer in the area who saw the attack and went to the aid of the young girl," said Walton County Sheriff's Lt. Frank Owens. "He got the girl up on his board and brought her toward shore. He put himself at risk to help the girl."
The teenager was treated at the shore but had lost a lot of blood, Owens said. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The other girl, also 14 years old, narrowly escaped injury.
Thirty miles of Walton County beaches, packed with people trying to escape the summer heat, were shut down after the attack, which happened just before noon.
Fatal shark attacks are rare. There were seven reported deaths as a result of 61 unprovoked shark attacks recorded worldwide last year, according to the International Shark Attack File, a group at the Florida Museum of Natural History that tracks attacks.
There were four fatal attacks in 2003, three in 2002 and four in 2001, the group's statistics show.
Thirty shark attacks were reported in the United States last year. Florida, which routinely records the highest number in the country, had just 12 last year, down from an average of more than 30 in each of the four previous years. None was fatal.
The number was lower than recent years in part because a spate of hurricanes kept people out of Florida's coastal waters.
