A Florida man was bitten by a shark while snorkeling in the Bahamas on July 4, police said.
The man, 32, whose name has not been publicly released, was off Nippers Beach in Guana Cay when he was bitten around 5:30 p.m. local time, the Royal Bahamas Police Force said in a statement obtained by CBS.
The man was rushed to a hospital via airlift. His condition wasn’t released by authorities as of Friday afternoon.
Authorities said that the man, a Fort Lauderdale resident, was on a boat with two other Americans on an excursion that included snorkeling.
The type of shark wasn’t named.
Another American tourist attacked by shark in the Bahamas https://t.co/DO5hzQZleJ pic.twitter.com/zS7TCfWEDW
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 5, 2019
The attack came after two recent shark attacks in the Bahamas.
Jonathan Hernandez, a Florida resident, said that he was spearfishing off Abaco Island in late June when he was attacked.
“I got hit so hard from behind I thought the boat had run me over. I immediately looked to the left side and the shark was right in my face,” he told NBC.
The shark bit Hernandez’s left calf but he survived to tell the tale.
Bahamas shark attack victim shares harrowing story of survival https://t.co/0foxdL39SS
— 3rd Hour of TODAY (@3rdHourTODAY) July 1, 2019
“I was able to get away, kicking away. I looked in the water, and I could see in the water that my calf was hanging and gushing blood into the water,” he said. “It all happened so fast it was kind of a blur of whitewater and fins and thrashing.”
Another attack, on June 26, left a California woman dead.
Three sharks converged on the woman, Jordan Lindsey, as she snorkeled near Rose Island, the Bahamas Police Force said.
Lindsey’s family saw the sharks while she was in the water, but she didn’t hear their cries. The 21-year-old was a student at Loyola Marymount University.
According to the International Shark Attack File, which is produced by the Florida Musem at the University of Florida, there have been 28 unprovoked shark attacks in the Bahamas since 1749. There was one attack in 2015 and one attack in 2016; both were not fatal. The last fatal attack before this year took place in 2010.
Expert Analyzes Attack
An expert said the attack on Lindsey was unusual, as multiple sharks don’t typically converge the way they did.
Dr. Erich Ritter, a shark expert who was probing the fatal attack, told The Associated Press that the behavior of the sharks was not normal and said that the snorkeling company wasn’t monitoring the area properly, wondering why employees were in the boat instead of the water.
“For more than one shark to hone in on a person, that is unusual,” he told The Beach Reporter. “If this truly happened, then there must have been a very strong trigger. If someone is just snorkeling around, that just doesn’t happen. It just does not happen.”
Ritter said pictures of the bite wounds would provide definitive evidence that could be used to find out more about what happened.
“That would give us the answer,” he said. “So far, until we have seen the pictures, we cannot see how many sharks or what kind of species [were involved]. The wound pictures would tell the story.”
Hernandez, the Florida man who survived a shark attack, blamed businesses that let tourists feed sharks in his interview with NBC.
“They’re associating humans with getting food, and it’s making it very dangerous to be in the water, whether you’re spearing or you just happen to be snorkeling near where they’re feeding them,” he said.
