A Sydney man stared was mauled by a shark while swimming in the Solomon Islands yesterday.
Benjamin D’Emden, 34, was holidaying on a remote island resort when the shark attacked him from below, biting him on his face! D’Emden was left with severe cuts to his face and neck. He was flown to the capital Honiara’s main hospital by an emergency medical charter.
Doctors at the National Referral Hospital were last night working to stabilise Mr D’Emden so he could be flown to Australia for emergency treatment.
10-year-old Seth Shorten, FL, was bitten by a shark while playing in the Atlantic south of Crescent Beach about 9:30 a.m. and spent the night in Flagler Hospital for treatment of the wounds – one of which had a piece of a shark’s tooth in it.
The 4-foot-10 Seth was about waist deep when he was bitten on his right heel. Shorten said the bite was on the back of his ankle. The shark left six bite marks on the bottom of Seth’s foot and three or four on the top.
This is the second bite this year in St. Johns County.
Nicholas Edwards, father-of-two, died after being attacked by a large shark in Western Australia’s world famous Margaret River surfing region.
Dunsborough police Sergeant Craig Anderson said 31-year-old Edwards was on his last day of vacation when he was attacked 300 metres from the South Point surf break south of Cowaramup Bay, near Gracetown.
Sergeant Anderson said a couple walking on the beach about 8am (WST) saw him sitting on his board waiting for a wave but when they turned around four minutes later, he had disappeared.
“They just saw the board only and a lot of grey objects around the board,” Sergeant Anderson said
“They’ve gone down a bit further and seen the fellow face down in the water amongst the rocks.”
It took the pair another six minutes to wade in and pull the unconscious surfer from the water. Sergeant Anderson said he was believed to already be dead but one of the rescuers tied a tourniquet and began CPR with the help of surfers who were suiting up in the carpark at the time.
“It appears that his right leg has been shredded with some significant injuries to the top of his leg and minor injuries to the calf,” Sergeant Anderson sa
About 10 minutes later his board washed up to shore after being bitten in half.
Josh Clement, 25, was surfing off Figure Eight Island with some friends Saturday. About 3 p.m., he caught a wave in. As he was jumping back on his board to paddle back out, he accidentally kicked the shark. He says the shark then turned and bit his left foot. Yeouch!
A woman was attacked by a shark in chest-deep water at a Mickler’s Landing near Jacksonville, Florida. The woman saw the 3- to 4-foot-long shark coming directly at her. When she tried to block it with her arm, the shark dug in.
“She screamed, ‘I just got attacked by a shark. Everybody get out of the water,’” witness Jen Moe said. “She came running at me, screaming. I looked at her arm and it was just shredded.”
Then about 50-75 people who were in the water at the time of the attack ran for the sand.
Rescuers said what made the shark attack unusual was that the water was crystal clear and, according to experts, shark attacks are usually the result of mistaken identity, but in this case it appears the shark was headed right for the woman.
This is the third attack in this area in the past two months. The previous two were at Jacksonville Beach, one on June 10 and another on July 23.
A Hamilton County teenager was attacked by a shark while on vacation near Charleston, South Carolina. It happened at a popular vacation spot called Isle Of Palms.
16-year-old Alex Stamm had to get 40 stitches in his leg after the shark attacked him.
Stamm says he was in waist deep water when he felt something biting his leg. He says he looked up and saw the shark’s tail swimming away. He thinks the shark was about four feet long.
Clayton Shulz, a baseball player at the University of North Florida, is recovering after being bitten by a shark in Jacksonville.
“The shark grabbed me 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,” said Clayton.
The 20-year-old needed 400 stitches to repair the injury to his foot.
A 55-year-old New Smyrna Beach man became Volusia County’s second shark bite victim of 2010 over the weekend.
Deputy Chief Mike Hensler said the surfer, identified as Jimmy Johnston, told Beach Patrol officers he was sitting on his surfboard with his feet out of the water Saturday near the Ponce de Leon Inlet’s south jetty.
He said he saw a baitfish jump into the air nearby. It was followed by a small spinner shark, Hensler said.
“The guy said the shark missed the fish, but grabbed his foot,” Hensler said.
In alarm, Johnston pulled his right foot from the shark’s mouth, causing most of the injury, which consisted of two cuts to the top and seven to the bottom of his foot.
Johnston becomes Volusia’s second bite victim of the year. The first was in May when a 10-year-old from Orlando suffered a minor bite while playing in shallow water near 20th Avenue, also in New Smyrna Beach.
A 10-year-old boy has been bitten by a shark while swimming off the coast of South Carolina.
Myrtle Beach police Capt. David Knipes said the boy had a cut on his leg and was taken to a local hospital Monday for treatment. University of Florida shark expert George Burgess says photographs he saw indicate a shark bite.
