Shark Bites Teen, Marking Long Island’s 6th Attack , on Same Day Dead Great White Washes Ashore
A teenager was bitten by a shark on Long Island the same day a young Great White shark washed ashore at a nearby beach.
Suffolk County officials said the 16-year-old victim was surfing off of Kismet Beach around 5:45 p.m. Wednesday evening when the shark bit his right foot, according to NBC affiliate WNBC and CBS affiliate WCBS-TV.
The bite resulted in a 4-inch cut, the outlets reported. He was later transported to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip for treatment.
The Suffolk County Police Department did not immediate respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
The victim’s father, Mike Haynes, told WCBS-TV he witnessed the immediate aftermath of the attack. “I could see blood coming from his foot and things got real serious, real quick,” recalled the EMT.
Luckily, Mike said his son Max’s injury did not appear to be serious. “I wanted to see how the bleed was, and thank God it wasn’t an arterial bleed,” he said. “It was something we could control.”
Max told News 12 Brooklyn that he initially “was a little shaken up” by the incident, but hopes to return to the water “as soon as possible.”
Lifeguards were not on duty when the attack occurred, reported WNBC and WCBS-TV.
Officials reportedly attempted to search for the shark using a police helicopter, but were unsuccessful due to murky water, according to the outlets.
This is at least the sixth shark bite incident to occur on Long Beach this summer, according to WNBC.
The same day as the Kismet Beach attack, the Quogue Village Police Department announced that a dead shark had washed up on the Ocean Beaches on Dune Road.
The shark was an estimated 7 to 8 feet long, according to a post on the department’s Facebook page.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation said that it was a juvenile male great white, reported WCBS-TV.
The QVPD said they are in contact with the South Fork Natural History Museum Shark Research and Education Program “who are attempting to monitor this situation” alongside law enforcement.
Swimmers and boaters were cautioned and asked “to keep distance to allow the Law Enforcement to monitor this event.”
Officials are looking to do a necropsy on the animal to assess how it died, WCBS-TV reported
In 2021 the United States led all countries with 47 confirmed cases of unprovoked shark bites, or 64% of the global total, according to the University of Florida. The number of U.S. shark bites is up 42% from 2020, which saw 33 incidents occur.
Florida leads the U.S. in shark bites, with 28 of the 47 confirmed cases (60%) from 2021, the university reported.
