Posted on 06/09/2005 11:48:19 PM PDT by Mongeaux
EW YORK A teen surfer in New Jersey needed 60 stitches after being bitten by a great white shark in the state's first recorded shark attack in 30 years.
In interviews with local press Thursday, Ryan Horton, 17, said he had been surfing off New Jersey's Surf City on Sunday when he felt a stabbing pain in his right foot that he likened to being hit with a baseball bat.
When he lifted his leg out of the water, he found a deep gash just above his ankle and a smaller wound on the other side of his leg.
A friend took him to hospital where the wound was closed with 60 stitches.
Horton initially had no idea what had happened, until his doctor suggested a shark attack as a possible cause.
Horton's father then e-mailed a photo of the wound to George Burgess, curator of the Florida-based International Shark Attack File, who concluded that the wound was caused by a juvenile great white shark, probably about six-feet (1.8 meters) in length.
The attack was subsequently recorded as the first in New Jersey waters in three decades -- a frequency level embraced by Surf City surfers.
"I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning," Mark Travers, 20, told the Newark Star Ledger. "You can't live your life scared." AFP
Freakin' scary animals. Hope I never have the opportunity to meet one of these.
On the positive side, they do eat those damn pinnipeds. That's at least one good thing they do.
Yeah
Dang seals have been scarfing salmon left and right at the locks and under the Sellwood, out neear the Clackamas river below the falls...
A.A.C.
One of the big news stories right before 9-11 was shark attacks in Florida.
BTW, Breaking News? This happened last Sunday. It's been in all the papers.
It's new to me. All the real GWS action has been in South Africa where people are being eaten.
Whatever. You would have found your story already posted if you had searched, "shark."
spinestein wrote:
["I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning," Mark Travers, 20, told the Newark Star Ledger. "You can't live your life scared."]
That's the spirit!
spinestein wrote:
((Maybe his new hobby could be tree climbing during thunderstorms.))
--> I was thinking this surfer may as well start playing russian roulette. To me, swimming in the ocean around sharks is like pointing a gun @yourself with faulty bullets in the barrels, eventually, one is going to go off.
How do you fight off a great white shark? Hit it in the snout with your fists. If that doesn't work, hit it with your stumps.
Hey you forgot to give him a nose job before you posted his pic. LOL
GWS attacks around the U.S. coasts don't equal South African standards. The worst single GWS episode in American history was in 1916 off the New Jersey coast and that was the series of attacks that the first "Jaws" movie (1975) was based on. And it was caused by just one rogue GWS that apparently got ambitious.
yes you are right, my apologies
I work nights so I am behind the curve.
The post I found was dated Thursday, and it's 3 hours after midnight. Sorry.
I think I hooked one of these fellows out at Lake Thompson. He got away.
This is why I dont swim in the ocean..I do not want to be swimming with something that is higher on the food chain than me!! :o)
....and for you SCUBA divers out there, you just draw you dive knife, stab your partner, and swim off...
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