Disasters & Accidents

Man hospitalized in Miami after shark attack

Miami, Feb 22 (EFE).- A 51-year-old man was hospitalized in Miami after being bitten on the arm by a shark as he was fishing near Bimini, the US Coast Guard said Tuesday.

A Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched on Monday to pick up the injured man from the boat on which he had been fishing and he was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

In a video released by the Coast Guard the injured man, with a tourniquet on his arm to stop the bleeding caused by the serious shark bite, was raised into the hovering helicopter in a metallic basket, aided by one of the chopper’s crewmen who had descended to the boat on a cable.

The Coast Guard has provided no details about the incident, which occurred at midday on Monday, or the injured man other than to say that he was in stable condition.

The International Shark Attack File (ISAF), a University of Florida database that is considered to be the world’s top monitoring entity regarding shark attacks, published its annual report in January in which it said that nine people lost their lives in 2021 after being bitten by sharks in “unprovoked” attacks.

The ISAF investigated 137 alleged interactions between sharks and humans all over the world in 2021 and confirmed 73 instances where sharks bit humans in unprovoked attacks and 39 attacks that were judged to have been provoked.

The report says that the risk of a person being bitten by a shark is “extremely low,” although the chances rise if one is surfing or engaging in some other offshore water sport, particularly using some sort of paddle board.

On Feb. 16, a person died when they were attacked by a large shark that caused “catastrophic injuries” on the Sidney Beach in southeastern Australia.

The attack, which was caught on video by eyewitnesses, occurred as the victim was swimming off Little Bay beach in the early afternoon, and paramedics and police later found human remains floating in the water.

EFE ar/dmt/bp

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