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Subscribe to RSSChris Myers, who was swimming with his son, suffered severe lacerations to his legs and ankles in a suspected shark attack at Ballston Beach in Truro, Mass.
A man who was attacked by a suspected shark while body surfing with his son near Cape Cod is expected to live, officials say.
The attack happened around 3:30 p.m. Monday when Chris Myers was body surfing and swimming with his teenage son off the coast of Ballston Beach, part of the Cape Cod National Seashore in Truro, Mass.
Witnesses on the beach say they saw a dorsal fin emerge from the water. Moments later, Myers was bleeding profusely from his feet and ankles.
“All of the sudden, between the two swimmers we saw a fin come up and something came through the water,” Anne-Marie Corner, who witnessed the attack, told NBC News affiliate WHDH. “It was a very large fin, easily 15 inches high, and came across and torqued a little towards the second swimmer and within seconds we realized it was a shark and the swimmer had been attacked.”
“It was, like, two people and this large dark blue-black thing came up and kind of torqued around and you saw this big dorsal fin and it, like, went back down,” another witness, Walter Palmer, told WHDH.
Myers is treated after a suspected shark attack Monday at Ballston Beach in Truro, Mass., on Cape Cod.
Gregory Skomal, a shark biologist with the state's Department of Fish and Game, later told a press conference that "the weight of evidence points to a white shark."
Witnesses say that beachgoers -- including a doctor and a nurse -- jumped into action immediately after the attack. Emergency responders quickly arrived at the scene, bandaged Myers' legs and carried him off the beach on a stretcher.
Myers is being treated at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he will undergo surgery.
Ballston Beach was open Tuesday, but officials posted signs around the beach warning beachgoers of the recent shark sighting.
Truro Town Administrator Rex Peterson told the Boston Globe that even if it was determined to be a shark attack, the beach would remain open because “sharks swim up and down the coast so closing that one particular beach didn’t’ seem to make a whole lot of sense.”
There have been concerns about shark attacks all summer. Earlier this month a kayaker had a close call with the shark, WHDH reported, and since June there have been several shark sightings near seals.
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Well when you swim in the ocean,what do you expect,DAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Swim in a pool at YMCA or public pool or city pool or country club anything other then a ocean,What lives in the ocean SHARKS,whales,seals,dolpins,shall I go on,DAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You take your chance swimming in the sea and ocean IDIOTS!!!!
This was no boat accident.
If you want to go swimming go to a lake or a pool where it's safer. The ocean is the sharks domaine, you are infringing on it's territory, it has every right to be there, you don't.
It makes you wonder about people doesn't it? It REALLY makes me wonder because I simply wouldn't take the chance swimming in the ocean especially with children.
Well the pool is Ok but our lakes have cotton mouth mocassins that will ruin your day, not to mention alligators that love to bite too.
They said that there are sharks that swim up and down the coast so why shut down the beach. WHAT? They need to make a bearer between the sharks and people
They did, its called the shoreline!!!!!!!
Martin, it's all psychological. You yell baracuda, everybody says hugh? what? You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the 4th of July.
And yet ANOTHER story of a shark attack. Getting to the point fella's I'd rather hear about a Kardsashian. Seriously can't stand them, but the whole shark in the ocean thing is getting just as lame.
This is what happens. It indicates the non frenzied feeding of a large squalus. Possibly Longimanus or Isurus glauca.
In response to the first post by HumanBieng that "we are the smarter species" well, I don't know, it seems pretty dumb to go swimming in territories that belong to them (sharks) and other creatures of the ocean.
I enjoy an ocean from afar, or on a ship, or flying over it on a plane, etc.....but really oceans are the domain of the creatures who were created to inhabit them and we should leave them alone. It monstrous how we (human beings)
overfish and over kill all living creatures.
....and surfers, I guess you can keep on surfin' but I don't believe in killing sharks for the purpose of peoples selfish
pursuits and I don't believe all surfers have this mentality.
He ate the light.
Wanna know why sharks circle a person before attacking? Humans taste better with the crap scared out of them.
See, thats what this story needed!!! Thanks, good job!!
I am a paramedic and SCUBA certified. I was on scene for the 8 y/o who had his leg bit and his arm bit off at Fort Pickens FL. in 2000( I think). The kid lived and had his arm reatached and I still dive today. There are not any more shark attacks now than in the past!! Sharks are not starving. There are the unfortunant times that man and beast end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sharks are not just mindless killers. Most "attacks" are test bites since they do not know what we are or mistake us for there primary food. Millions of sharks are killed every year by having there fins cut off and then thrown back in to drown, all so some Japanese can have a bowl of shark fin soup!!! Please read a book or watch an educational show and stop spewing ingnorance!! Sharks are the most important animal in the sea. The oceans will die if the sharks disapear!!
Bull
They dont know for sure it was a shark other animals in the sea have been known to bite humans including alligators, sea turtles, sturgeon, electric eels, small whales there is a plethora of creatures its not fair to always blame the shark.
Poor sharks they get all the bad press, I bet it was a turtle....kill all the turtles. Tell the Japs that turtles are an aphrodisiac and they'll wipe them out for us.
Then they should know that Obama is an aphrodisiac!
Will58.... you have it backwards. We are over fishing, taking the sharks food and they are now looking elsewhere plus they are very curious, although not too gentle about it. We certainly don't need to and shouldn't kill them. The water is their domain, for heavens sake we kill everything that get's in our way on land and eat everything we can find in the oceans of the world...humans are morons!
Hey Jazzy take off all your clothes and go live in the woods that way you don't have to live among the morons. Or maybe if you did then there wouldn't be anymore human morons.
You bitch about everything.It gets old.
Have you ever had shark steak? It's delicious!
The NRA suggests assaut weapons for every swimmer.
This is not a problem you can nibble away at.
Heh, heh...sharks have been around since the times of the dinosaurs. They are the ultimate biological killing machines - large mouths with vicious teeth and a powerful sense of smell. They are stealthy and deadly fast when they sense prey.
If you don't want to get mistaken for a McSeal Sammich then stay out of the ocean. Going swimming in shark habitat during conditions they favor is akin to walking down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood...there's a chance you'll get mugged...
Herp...
a...
derp...
Every time I was in the ocean I always thought about attacks. I thought before I went in. I have been bit by fish in lakes before. It is taking a chance invading there Home and hunting grounds 1 must think always in there grounds.
There are individuals on this thread calling for the destruction of sharks (no matter the species) seemingly because of the paranoia surrounding reported shark attacks which always seem to make headlines. Having lived near the ocean for many decades, I have seen many sharks (almost always non-threatening species) from juveniles to adults killed by callous ''fishermen'' but NOT one reported attack on a human.
According to paleontologists, sharks have evolved largely unchanged for some 200 million years in the Earth's seas; a marker that Homo sapiens in their present guise will never see.
Will you list the non-threatening species so I will know to throw them back when I catch them. Seems every shark I ever caught tried to bite me. So the sharks have lived 200 million years, their time is up, 200 million thats all you get. Also tends to make me wonder about evolution. Why did the sharks get left out? Duh, because everything that ever was is still the same as it was when it was created.
"Ballston Beach was open Tuesday, but officials posted signs around the beach warning beachgoers of the recent shark sighting."
So a man swimming at Ballston Beach is taken to the hospital, requires surgery, stitches, medicine, several days in the hospital, etc all due to a mere "shark sighting." Really? Gee Mr. Officials, I wonder how you would word your warning signs if the man had died.
Mity-Bite! He Oughtta Be On THAT Commercial! Guaranteed to catch SHARKS!
to all the simpletons who suggested that killing all sharks would both prevent human injury and allow fisheries to recover......well...it's simple....you're ignorant......sharks very very rarely eat people of purpose....they don't know what we are....we don't inhabit their environment....but, on occasion, in spite of our own knowledge of their existence there...well, in we go.....they can't ask us what we are, or pinch us like a tomato or melon....so to see what we are...they bite us....especially for white sharks, who love seals, fatty fatty boombalatty seals, we're hard nasty little nuggets, so they usually take a bite, and don't eat us....unfortunately, that taste test often hurts or kills us.......if you really have to assign 'blame' for that..it's on us....we know they are in the water.....and we get in with them.....as for the depleted fish stocks....that's pretty much entirely on us.....humans have taken fish out of the oceans in truly staggering numbers for decades.....the sharks, and all the other fish...well, they've been in balance with one another for MILLIONS of years.....we've unbalance that by our own methods....and, as it happens, we already kill millions of sharks annually, mostly by finning and discarding them while still alive.....mostly for soup and souvenirs.....and if the ignorant among us know anything about ecosystem balance....take out the apex predators of any ecosystem...go ahead....interesting results await......
So what's your plan Old Wise Papi? Since we are all so ignorant. By the way as far as the ocean goes, if the shark went into extinction, another species would move into the position of top predator. It is only when you remove all natural enemies that a species will over-populate. Maybe we could stand a little over population of edible sea food. So Old Great Papi, tell us how you would save the oceans ecosystem.
YUP! Your on the Serengheti in the Seawater! Where Predators Prowl! WHATs the SURPRISE!
You Ever See a School of Blues in a Feeding FRENZY! Turning the Water RED! You Don't Wanna Swim THERE!
Thou Shall Not Teabag says:
"I will do my best to keep on killing every shark that comes within range of my spear gun which is equipped with a 12-GAUGE 00 BUCK SHOT STEELE BANG STICK.
My only thought: "Ohhhh, what a man." Dick head.
Seems the most intelligent people can do the dumbest things, look folks stay out of shark infested waters. How hard is that to understand, hikers, stay out of bear infested woods, and on and on. Don't blame the shark, that's his surf, don't blame the bear, that's his turf. Accidents don't just happen, they're caused.....ever heard of cause and effect. Tragic however. The sharks brain is about the size of a walnut, large brain versus small brain, small brain wins.
Yes, let's all hide so that the PETA members can feel good about their animal friends. There are zoos for the dangerous animals, and the rest of us should be able to enjoy the sea and the forests. But you can stay home.
It's THEIR ocean. We're just visitors. What are you, an advocate for dumb humans who provoke animal attacks?
Bullshlt, who gave it to them. I am human we oversee everything on this planet, no other species comes before me. I am Human. I believe in being kind to animals as long as they are kind to me. Dangerous ones belong restrained in a zoo or special habitat. It is my ocean I am human.
Bullet go take a swim off the African coast, since it's your ocean, I'll send flowers to your funeral, after all it's yours.