A shark that attacked a California man swimming in Hawaii tore the skin off the victim, a witness said.
Allison Keller was at the beach in Maui when Thomas Smiley, 65, was rushed onto the shore after getting attacked.
“They pulled the man up. He looked unconscious when they transferred him to the other gurney. And we could see that they were trying to do CPR on him,” she told Hawaii News Now.
“As we got closer, I saw some blood on his stomach and then I got looking a little bit more and his wrist, it looked like the skin on his wrist was just torn off. And then I got looking closer and his entire left leg from his knee down was just missing. There was no blood or anything.”
Officials: Man dies after shark incident off Maui’s Kaanapali Shore https://t.co/JtLR29JuhD #HNN
— Hawaii News Now (@HawaiiNewsNow) May 25, 2019
She said that Smiley was on vacation with his wife.
The Maui Fire Department said that Smiley was swimming near Kaanapali Beach Park, about 60 yards from the shore, when he was attacked.
According to the state of Hawaii, the attack was the sixth this year following just three last year. It was the fifth fatal attack since 1995, when the state began keeping records—all of the fatal attacks have taken place on Maui.
“Maui has for some reason been a hot spot in the Hawaiian islands for tiger shark attacks, and I don’t think anybody can really say with any certainty why that is. There’s certainly great tiger shark habitat on Maui, a lot of shallow water, but a lot of people in the water too,” Dr. Michael Domeier, a shark expert, told KHON 2.
Officials don’t know yet what type of attack killed Smiley. Domeier said it could have been a tiger shark or a Galapagos shark.
“Galapagos sharks, which actually surprised me, have been a little aggressive on Oahu. A guy was knocked off his paddle board on Diamond Head, and then a woman was bitten in the arm on the North Shore of Oahu. And then the A-bay attack, when the woman got severely bitten in the leg, now DLNR attributes that to a Galapagos shark,” Domeier said.
He stressed that shark attacks are rare and said he hoped people continue going into the ocean.
“It’s very unlikely it’s going to happen to you. But use your common sense. If you got a weird feeling, don’t go in the water. Don’t get in water after a storm when there’s a lot of dirty water. Go with friends, being by yourself you might be a little bit more vulnerable,” he said.
“And spear fishing, that’s the most dangerous activity when it comes to sharks … you do not want to be dragging a stringer fish around hooked to your belt, that’s asking for trouble.”
Granite Bay’s Dr. Thomas Smiley killed in Maui shark attack. He leaves behind a wife, 3 children, and 6 grandchildren. pic.twitter.com/ln9D052EvW
— stevelarge (@largesteven) May 27, 2019
Smiley Remembered
Smiley was an optometrist in Sacramento, a family member told KCRA.
A man who said that he was Smiley’s best friend said that Smiley was a good man.
“He was a good-hearted man that people who didn’t get to know him really missed out,” Dr. Gary Taxera told the broadcaster.
He said he met Smiley more than four decades ago while they were both attending the UC Berkeley School of Optometry.
“I’m a man of faith. And nobody’s going to ever tell me that it was his time to die. That’s the not the way it works in my opinion. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time doing something in a place he loved,” Taxera said, noting Smiley loved to ski, scuba dive, and do other outdoor activities.
Smiley left behind a wife, three children, and six grandchildren.
