Over the weekend, two shark attacks that resulted in amputations shook up the coastal community of Oak Island in the state of North Carolina. The first attack occurred about 15 minutes after 4:00 pm, and it involved a 13-year old girl. Less than an hour later, a 16-year olf boy was attacked at the same beach.

According to a news report filed by Stephanie Doyle of the Fox 8 television news station in High Point:

The 13-year-old girl, who lost an arm, is from Archdale, officials said. She was visiting family. The 16-year-old boy, who also lost an arm, is from Colorado Springs, Colo. The names of the victims have since been released.

 

Both attacks [took place] in waist-deep water about 20 yards off shore.

 

Both teens are out of surgery and in stable condition but “have a long road ahead of them.” New Hanover Regional Medical Center hospital officials said both their injuries were life-threatening and credited the quick action of bystanders who stopped the bleeding and helped save their lives.

 

[The] predator could be either a bull or tiger shark, both of which are undaunted by larger prey.

 

A few days earlier, The Costa Rica Star received this report from our news wire partner Agencia EFE:

Miami, Jun 8 (EFE).- An 11-year-old boy is recovering in hospital from a serious leg injury inflicted by a shark while he was playing in the ocean just a few meters (yards) from the shoreline at Cocoa Beach on Florida’s east coast, local media said Monday.

The boy was with his family this weekend at the beach in Brevard County’s Lori Wilson Park when a lifeguard noticed the youngster struggling wildly in water up to his waist, the online daily Florida Today reported.

“He was in waist deep waters near his mother and our lifeguards saw him in distress,” Eisen Witcher of the Ocean Rescue lifeguard team told the online daily.

“There was blood in the water. A lifeguard immediately went into the water and pulled the youth back to shore. The boy had a large, bloodied laceration on his lower right calf…We wrapped it up as fast as we could,” Witcher said.

Once the lifeguards bandaged the boy, whose identity was not revealed, he was taken by ambulance to Cape Canaveral Hospital, but because the injury was so severe he was flown to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women in Orlando.

Bathers were warned to stay out of the water for at least an hour as a precautionary measure.

Last April a man suffered shark bites to his torso and neck off the coast of Jupiter in Palm Beach County while underwater fishing in that area.

The state of Florida leads the nation in the number of shark attacks on its coasts (28), 54 percent of the total number recorded in the United States, according to figures of the International Shark Attack File, with Volusia County having the most with 10, followed by Broward and Palm Beach Counties. EFE