Posted on 06/25/2005 2:19:19 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
A 14-year-old girl died Saturday after a shark attacked her while she and a companion were swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, authorities said.
The teenagers were swimming on boogie boards about 100 yards offshore when they noticed a dark shadow in the water, authorities said.
"One of the swimmers was bitten. It was the lower portions of her body," said Walton County Sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Shank. The other swimmer was not injured.
Both girls swam to shore, and the victim was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, Shank said. The girl was on vacation from Louisiana, but her name was not immediately released.
The attack happened near the Camping on the Gulf Holiday Travel Park, about 45 miles east of Pensacola on the Florida Panhandle.
Patrick O'Neill, the campground's general manager, refused to comment.
Authorities closed about 20 miles of beaches to swimming shortly after the attack. It's the height of the summer tourism season along the coast and the beaches were packed with people.
"This doesn't happen very often at all — very, very seldom," said Mike McKee, front desk supervisor at the nearby Hilton Sandestin Beach Resort and Spa.
Florida had the largest number of documented shark attacks worldwide in 2003 with 30, according to statistics compiled by the American Elasmobranch Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History. There were 12 attacks off the coast of Florida last year.
Dont yall feel like we are all sitting around a campfire scaring each other.
Someone ought to tell the story of the man with the hook arm.
LOL
A couple of years ago, my brother in law got bit by a cotton mouth on his hand. He is a stubborn coot, an internist, who raised snakes so he figured the size of the snake and his size. Then he announced he wasn't going to die so he refused to go to the hospital ER.
He proceeded to be very ill, his arm was huge, I mean the man was sick as a dog. Later that summer, he was telling my grown daughter about it. After hearing the story, she said "Cool Man, that is way cool". He stared at her like she was an alien.
I had two sharks and a Manta Ray literally brush past me in Hawaii. I thought I saw "shadows" and kept turning around. I guess the sharks wanted the Manta Ray..I was lucky and got to shore in no time. We cleared the beach and watched them. I never went back in THAT ocean, and my folks lived there!
Now he will never go on the beach again.
Next we have to tell him about vacation condos exploding with gas leaks nobody knew about,sort of like that St Louis fire. Then he will stay home permanently.
Just don't let them fall off the jet skis.
Almost no one outside of the South believes cottonmouth stories. When I was a kid, we'd go fishing from the banks at nearby stock tanks. One day there were two large water mocassins on a pile of branches in the middle, about 50 ft away. I looked later and only one was on the branches, a ripple spreading out from where the other was. Next thing I know, this snake comes onto the bank right in front of me. I panic up the side and it was still coming. I picked a big rock and threw it down. The snake slithered back into the water with a serious kink in its back.
They attack fish on stringers right at your feet. Saw a catfish get attacked and it had two puncture marks on its back. Didn't die so I guess the snake didn't inject it with poison.
Water mocassins/cottonmouths will come after you, unprovoked. I *really* don't like 'em. Rattlesnakes are nothing, they run as fast as they can. You have to step on one to get bit. Mocassins hunt you down...
Glad your brother-in-law is around to tell his story.
Do you think that can train them to connect humans and food? Alligators fed by humans become more dangerous, not more tame, because they can't distinguish the feeder from the food very well in their minds.
The real truth of the matter is : 1) first of all the press would take things out of context soo bad as to make it look like we have a shark problem here.
2) Yes, there are loads of bull sharks here and have the pictures and other contacts to back me up. The same people will also tell you what I will say now. There are tons of bulls around here, and NO we do not have a shark problem. A once in a rare blue moon attack is statistically probable ANYWHERE in the worlds oceans.
3) It's bad enough having this current attack being thrust nationwide to the headlines, as well as I'm sure that the media is, or will, be bringing up the little boy who had his arm taken off a few years back just 30 -40 miles from here during this recent attack. Our area depends on the tourist dollar. And if there is anybody who is contemplating planning thier vacation to go diving or learn to dive, then I will be affected by this in my wallet.
4) The media will blow this sooo outta proportion that it won't be funny. Case in point was the little boy I mentioned earlier. That attack was the one that started the whole rash of stories the media jumped on that would have made one think that the sharks had taken out an all out revenge on mankind, when in fact, there were less attacks worldwide than any other year.
i just got back from sanibel! we go there every summer. it is true that the sand is much different. there are huge sandbars there now that weren't there before.
we were able to walk waaaaay out in the water, with the water only up to the shoulders. at one point, we ran back because we saw a big dark thing.
i am sure glad i didn't know about this then. i had a great time on vaca.
You swim where sharks are, it's bound to happen.
All the bait attracts the larger predators (big fish., sharks) and they in turn attract the fishermen.
No amount of bait used by fishermen can even come close to the biomass of the naturally occurring bait species in that area at that time of the year.
That stubborn coot is the bane of my sister's existence. I mean he was right but still, you go to the hospital if a snake bites you.
And the mocassins can swim!! When we would visit my grandparents out in the country, I hated the swimming hole. I just knew they would come get me. And waterskiing,,I always fear skiing into a nest of them. It happened alot when I was growing up,,people ending up in a nest of mocassins and dying.
Hanging on the door. I cannot remember the details but it scared me alot.
My sister and I were hunting dewberries in a large field in Houston when I stepped on the head of a water mocassin. I was 8 or 9 and didn't weigh all that much. I told her to run to the 7-11 that was up on the road because I wanted her out of the way and also wanted her to bring back an adult if needed. Once she had gottten far enough away, I jumped and ran as fast as I could after her. Thankfully, I didn't get bit and that was the closest I ever got to one of those!
I do see them up here in Oklahoma when we go fishing but usually they're after your bait and don't bother you. Course, I don't take any chances either.
Ever been to Bayou Pigeon, I think it is?? I was taken there once and have never seen snakes that big outside of a zoo. And yeah, hanging all over the place like dam* pythons. Definite over-population. Sounds like you were lucky to have such a snake-wise dad.
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