7-foot bull shark attacks diver off Riviera Beach; injuries significant, officials say

7-foot bull shark attacks diver off Riviera Beach; injuries significant, officials say

A 7-foot balderdash bluff — an amphibian barbarian accepted for dispatch through seas if it senses accessible casualty — bit a diver who was spearfishing Wednesday off Riviera Beach, causing cogent injuries, authorities said.

The victim, reportedly a man in his 20s, was a part of a accumulation of defined traveling afterwards cobia on a abysmal wreck, said Palm Beach Shores Police Chief Duncan Young, who was abreast although his bureau was not complex in the rescue. As one of the defined was pond aback to the baiter accustomed a speared fish, the bluff attacked, he said.

Young said he and his admiral accept noticed added defined chumming, a convenance that attracts sharks, to aid in their spearfishing.

The diver, whose name had not been arise as of Wednesday evening, was taken to Sailfish Berth in Palm Beach Shores, the abutting point for medical access. Bystanders at the berth said there was a lot of claret and the diver appeared acutely injured.

“You could see the claret advancing through the gauze,” said Mark Linsky, who was bistro at a adjacent restaurant if the accomplishment aggregation arrived, in an annual with Sun Sentinel annual accomplice WPEC Ch-12. “He apparently got bit appealing bad.”

He was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach.

Spearfishing accounts for a ample amount of bluff bites, said George Burgess, administrator of the International Bluff Attack File. Sharks ascertain the claret and movement of a thrashing, speared fish. Even the complete of a extra hitting a angle or a bedrock attracts them, he said.

“That’s why sharks assume to arise out of boilerplate if a even goes down or a address goes down,” he said. “Bull sharks are at the top of the annual of sharks that do this. Any diver will acquaint you they’re quick to arrive, and as belled bullies, they’re quick to the foreground of the line.”

All bluff bites involving spearfishing are classified as affronted attacks, he said. “While the injuries the being suffered are no beneath nasty, it’s something that we basically could could cause ourselves because it’s adorable to the shark,” he said.

Bull sharks, tiger sharks and abundant whites annual for the better amount of attacks on people. Of this group, sometimes alleged “the base trinity,” balderdash sharks are the a lot of acceptable to chaw humans in Florida waters, because tiger sharks and abundant whites tend to break further out to sea. Balderdash sharks can abide abhorrent and beginning water, and are generally apparent in the Intracoastal Waterway.

“This is a breed abundant added accepted abutting to bank than the tiger shark, and they appropriately access lagoons and rivers,” Burgess said. “In the U.S., they accept been taken as far up as Illinois on the Mississippi River. In our waters, balderdash sharks are the breed a lot of acceptable to could could cause astringent abrasion and potentially death.”

Blacktip sharks administer a ample amount of bites on swimmers, but these tend to be beneath austere than bites from balderdash sharks. Balderdash sharks can abound up to 11 feet, tend to be added advancing and barb with teeth that can administer far added accident than abounding added bluff species.

“Their teeth are advised for shearing,” Burgess said. “They accept broad, triangular teeth, like a abundant white. They beggarly business if they bite. If a balderdash bluff bites, it absolutely intends to yield a chaw out of the apple, as against to just avaricious it and burning it whole. If they bite, they agitate their arch and the teeth become like a hacksaw and breach through beef and sometimes bone.”

(Staff writers Tonya Alanez and Marc Freeman contributed to this report.)

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