Cameron Whiting had just finished an easy 1.5-mile open-water swim and was bodysurfing Sunday morning off Del Mar Beach when a member of his group of swimmers started screaming.
At first, Whiting heard only terror in his voice; then her mind understood that she was shouting: “Shark!
One of the new members of the swimming group, a 46-year-old man whose name has not been released, was attacked. The woman closest to him was screaming for help.
As it was before 9 a.m. and there were no lifeguards, help would have to come from the swimmers closest to the man in distress. It was Whiting and another band member, Kevin Barrett. The two men were about 100 yards offshore, while most of the others were back on the beach and thinking about breakfast.
Barrett moved towards the man – and the shark – as quickly as he could. Whiting, 31, who had trained as an ocean lifeguard, quickly scanned the shore to make sure someone was calling for help, then began swimming.
As he moved his arms furiously, two fears clashed in his mind.
The first was the realization that he was swimming directly toward an active shark attack. The second was his fear of what he might find once he got there. Would his fellow swimmer have all his limbs? Would he be alive?
“That’s what scared me the most,” Whiting said. “To reach it and realize…”
But when he had swum about 50 meters, just behind Barrett, they found the victim conscious, his limbs intact. However, he was bleeding profusely.
They were about 150 meters from the shore; it was hard to imagine that he could do it alone. When they turned him over, blood started gushing from his diving suit.
As they began to pull him toward the beach, a surfer approached and offered him his board.
They carried him onto the surfboard and Whiting climbed behind to paddle. Barrett swam alongside, stabilizing the victim. The woman who had called for their help followed them.
“That’s when I started to see the full extent of the blood,” Whiting recalled. It “spouted out from both sides of the board, leaving a big mark” in the water.
Whiting paddled as fast as he could. It occurred to him that he was “surrounded by blood and there was still a shark out there.” The journey to shore “felt like an eternity but probably only took a few minutes.”
Finally, they came to a place where they could stand. The rescuers hoisted the man up and carried him, still lying on the board, to the beach.
By then, the rescuers – who were nearby, waiting to begin duty – had rushed to the scene.
They placed the victim in the back of the rescue truck to assess his injuries.
The victim said he was struck once by the shark and then bitten. Then the shark came back to him. He tried to punch him, throwing his fist towards his nose and suffering deep cuts to his arm.
He also had lacerations on his chest, from where the shark had bitten him during its first pass.
Whiting said he tried to block the man from seeing the deep cuts in his chest.
They tied a tourniquet around his arm, then applied as much gauze as possible to the lacerations on his chest.
An emergency room doctor who was walking his dog on the beach joined them, examined the injuries and advised rescuers to continue applying pressure.
Finally, the ambulance arrived.
As paramedics hoisted the man up, Whiting tried to reassure him, telling him everything would be okay.
The man thanked him so calmly that Whiting wondered if he was in shock.
He was rushed to hospital and is expected to survive. On Monday, he was awake and smiling.
Following the attack, lifeguards closed Del Mar Beach for 48 hours. Authorities urged the public to remain calm.
The ocean is teeming with sharks, and they rarely harm humans, said John Ugoretz, environmental program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. When they attack, it’s probably because they mistake humans for prey like a seal or sea lion, scientists theorize.
“Since 1950, there have been 215 incidents involving sharks in California,” Ugoretz said. “It’s less than three per year.”
Among them, 16 died.
“It’s incredibly rare to encounter a shark,” Ugoretz said. “You are much, much, much more likely to be stung by a stingray.”
One thing is true, Ugoretz said: Reports of shark encounters that don’t result in injuries are sharply increasing, but he doesn’t blame sharks for that.
“Twenty years ago, if someone got hit and wasn’t hurt, they could tell their friends,” he said. “Now they’re telling the entire Internet.”
State data shows that interactions with sharks that did not result in injuries began to increase around 2004. Facebook was founded that same year.
Jonathan Edelbrock, Del Mar’s chief lifeguard and director of community services, said Sunday’s conditions could have been confusing for the sharks.
The light was dim and the water was murky, he said, like the last time a shark attacked a human off Del Mar Beach, in November 2022. That swimmer also survived.
Whiting has no intention of letting the incident keep him away from the ocean. In fact, he said, some of the swimmers in his group are already planning to get back in the water, albeit at a different beach.
“We are all passionate about being at sea,” he said.
California Daily Newspapers
