In a luxurious beach vacation destination, a fisherman became the target of nature’s fury while battling a shark he had caught over the July Fourth weekend.
A 21-year-old man in Nantucket hooked a common sandbar shark on Sunday and brought it ashore, as reported by the Nantucket Current. While trying to release the shark back into the sea, it bit his leg, resulting in a severe injury.
Friends of the unnamed individual drove him to a local hospital, and he was later airlifted by Boston Medflight helicopter to a mainland hospital for further medical attention.
A view of Madaket Beach on April 25, 2020, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
On June 11, a 9-year-old girl snorkeling off the coast of Boca Grande, Florida, on the state’s Gulf Coast, sustained a gruesome shark bite that nearly severed her hand. Leah Lendel was rushed by helicopter to Tampa General Hospital, where she underwent a successful surgery involving artery grafts, bone reconstruction and nerve repair to save her hand.
Later in June, a beachgoer was injured in an attack on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, another popular tourist destination for summer getaways.
That incident “involved a patient with a leg injury consistent with lacerations typically associated with a shark bite,” according to Hilton Head Fire Rescue.
Galante warned that the ocean is a shark’s domain.
“Shark Week” host Forrest Galante warned swimmers about shark attacks. (iStock)
“Now, a lot of people fear them, and they see them as mindless killing machines, but the truth is, these are just animals that sit at the top of the food chain,” he said. “And any time that we enter into the water, we’re entering into their domain. So, when there is a shark attack or a shark bite, that is simply because we have gone into a habitat where we as human beings don’t really belong, and we’re not the apex predator.”
