Top five shark attacks

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This article was published 19/06/2015 (3975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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You can’t escape them, even if you don’t live near the ocean.

We’re talking about sharks: those razor-toothed denizens of the deep that have fascinated and terrified humankind even before the invention of the TV, if you can imagine.

The public’s insatiable appetite for gruesome shark news led to headlines around the world last Sunday, after two young people vacationing in the North Carolina beach town of Oak Island lost limbs in separate life-threatening attacks while swimming in waist-deep water.

According to reports, a 12-year-old girl lost part of her left arm and suffered a leg injury, and a 16-year-old lost his left arm in an attack less than 90 minutes later some three kilometres away. It’s not known whether the same shark attacked both victims.

Oak Island Mayor Betty Wallace told media the window of less than two hours between the attacks didn’t give workers enough time to close the town’s beaches.

In a cruel twist, the attacks came just as Discovery Channel announced plans for its 20th annual Shark Week, the wildly popular programming block showcasing all things shark. A release boasted this summer’s sharkapalooza (July 5 to July 12) will feature “more sharks than any previous Shark Week.”

With that ill-timed PR plug in mind, and while you hum the haunting theme music from the iconic movie Jaws, here’s a look at five of the most infamous shark attacks in history:

 

5) Sir Brook Watson

What better place to start than with the man believed to be the world’s first documented survivor of a shark attack? The tale began in 1749 when Watson, a 14-year-old serving aboard a trading ship docked in Havana, was attacked not once, but twice while swimming in the harbour. In the first attack, accounts say, the shark removed flesh from below the calf of Watson’s right leg. In the second, it bit off his right foot at the ankle. The teen’s shipmates were able to pull him from the water but the injured leg was later amputated below the knee. Despite the grisly attack — or, perhaps, because of it — Watson made the most of his remaining years, becoming a successful soldier, merchant and politician. He served in the British parliament and became Lord Mayor of London in 1796. But he is arguably best known as the subject of a 1778 oil painting by John Singleton Copley. Dubbed Watson and the Shark, it depicts the terrifying moment when the young Watson reaches from the bloodied water for help from nine seamen rowing to his aid, just as a large shark closes in, mouth agape. According to the National Gallery in Washington, which bought the painting in 1963, the grisly subject caused a sensation at the time: “The rescuers’ anxious expressions and actions reveal both concern for their thrashing companion and a growing awareness of their own peril. Time stands still as the viewer is forced to ponder Watson’s fate.” Yes, he went into politics. How gruesome!

 

4) Bethany Hamilton

It would take a lot more than a shark to defeat this remarkable young woman. On Oct. 31, 2003, Hamilton, 13 and one of America’s top female surfers in her age group, went for a morning surf in Hawaii with best friend Alana Blanchard, Alana’s father, Holt, and her brother, Byron. Hamilton was lying on her board with her left arm dangling in the water when a 14-foot tiger shark came up from below and bit her arm off just below the shoulder. The Blanchards got her to shore, where Holt fashioned a tourniquet. By the time she arrived at hospital, Hamilton had lost 60 per cent of her blood. If you need a little inspiration, try this on for size: after several surgeries, the teenager was back on her board just three weeks after the ordeal and won a National Scholastic Surfing Association title in 2005. Although it’s difficult to paddle — she has to kick more to make up for the loss of her arm — she continues to surf with the aggressive style she was known for before the attack. She wrote about her ordeal in the 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board, which led to the 2011 Hollywood film Soul Surfer. If that isn’t inspiring enough, get out your tissues: Hamilton, who married Adam Dirks in 2013, took to social media earlier this month to announce the birth of her first child. “Blessed to welcome our son, Tobias, into the world,” the Soul Surfer posted on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. “Born June 1st… he is named after his great grandpa Tobias, meaning ‘The goodness of God.’ Adam and I are so in love with our lil guy and are stoked to share life with him!”

 

3) Rodney Fox

Some people might be knocked off stride by a little thing like a shark attack. Good thing Rodney Fox is not “some people.” In 1963, the then-insurance salesman was defending his regional Australian spearfishing title off Aldinga Beach, 50 kilometres south of Adelaide, when he felt something smash into his side. “I felt like I’d been hit by a train,” he later recalled. “My chest was clamped, like in a vice. I was a bone in a dog’s mouth.” A great white shark had grabbed him around the middle and took him for the ride of his life. After gouging the beast in the eyes and jamming an arm down its throat, Fox escaped and was pulled into a boat. He is the world’s most famous shark attack survivor because it is considered a miracle he is still alive. The bones were visible in his right hand and arm; his rib cage, lungs and upper stomach were all exposed as lacerations arced from his shoulder to his waist. It’s believed his wetsuit kept his internal organs from spilling out. His website says Fox had 462 stitches in his chest, and 92 in his right hand and arm. To conquer his fear, Fox began studying great white sharks and is now a world expert. He came up with the idea for the first underwater shark observation cage and now runs a diving operation in Australia and fights to raise awareness of the plight of all shark species. He’s had a hand in most major shark documentaries and in the early 1970s Fox got a call from Steven Spielberg, who hired him to film underwater footage for his blockbuster film Jaws. Some people we know refused to go in their bathtubs after watching that movie.

 

2) Jersey Shore attacks of 1916

At the time, it was called the case of the “Jersey man-eater.” Today, we’re more apt to think of it as the real-life terror that inspired Jaws, the blockbuster 1974 novel by Peter Benchley that spawned the 1975 movie in which a man-eating shark terrorizes the fictional beach community of Amity Island. Over 11 days in 1916, four people were killed and one was injured in shark attacks along the Jersey Shore during a heat wave that drove people to U.S. seaside resorts. Two people were killed off the coast, including the first victim, 25-year-old Charles Vansant, who was attacked during an evening swim. He was pulled from the water by a lifeguard who says a shark followed them to shore. Vansant’s left thigh was stripped of flesh and he bled to death on the manager’s desk at the Engleside Hotel. The final three attacks took place at Matawan Creek, north of Spring Lake, N.J. A sea captain reported seeing a shark in the creek, but was dismissed by locals. Not long after, a shark took 11-year-old Lester Stillwell while he was swimming with friends. One of the men who came to his rescue was also attacked in front of townspeople and later died at hospital. The final victim, teenager Joseph Dunn, was attacked less than one kilometre downstream. He was rescued by his brother and a friend after a brutal tug-of-war with the shark and survived. Just two days later, a great white was caught near the mouth of the creek and, when it was cut open, 15 pounds of human remains were discovered. Unfortunately, the cast of the reality TV show Jersey Shore was not around at the time.

 

1) USS Indianapolis

It is largest loss of life at sea in U.S. Navy history, but most of us are aware of it only because of the iconic scene in Jaws where the shark hunter, Quint, reveals he was on the doomed warship. He recounts, in gory detail, what happened to the heavy cruiser after it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes on July 30, 1945, after delivering parts of the atomic bomb later dropped on Hiroshima. Here’s a taste of what Quint told Chief Brody and Matt Hooper: “Eleven-hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer… Y’know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I don’t know how many men; they averaged six an hour.” What’s horrifying is how close it is to the real story: of 1,196 on board, roughly 300 went down with the ship. That left 900 men floating in shark-infested water with no lifeboats. The ship, whose mission was so secret it sailed alone, was not missed and the survivors were only spotted by accident by a plane on routine patrol almost four days later. Drowning, delirium, dehydration and sharks claimed all but 317 men. “We were sunk at midnight, I saw (a shark) the first morning after daylight,” seaman Loel Dean Cox, just 19 when the ship was torpedoed, told the BBC at a recent reunion. “They were big. Some of them I swear were 15-feet long… we were losing three or four (men) each night and day. You were constantly in fear because you’d see ’em all the time.” Along with scaring us silly, Jaws reminds us of the agony these heroic men endured.

 

We hate to be alarmist, but we suggest, as a safety precaution, no one ever go swimming again. If you insist on visiting the ocean, keep Chief Brody’s helpful advice from Jaws in mind: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

 

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca