"Shark Attack Survivors News Archive"

08/04/2001 Krishna Thompson (Bahamas)

Shark Attack Survivors News Archive for Shark Attacks in 2001
Post Reply
Guest

Wedding anniversary man fought off shark during attack

Post by Guest »

08/04/01 Freeport Bahamas
Wedding anniversary man fought off shark during attack

A Wall Street banker beat off a shark as it attacked him before swimming back to shore using only one leg.

Before Krishna Thompson passed out on the Bahamian beach, he wrote his hotel room number in the sand so that he could be identified.

Mr Thompson, who is now at Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, after having his left leg amputated just below the knee, was on a wedding anniversary holiday.

He had been swimming alone when the shark attacked him off the coast of Freeport, Grand Bahama.

His wife of 10 years Ave Maria Thompson said: "He kept punching and punching. He has cuts on his hands because of that. He is so brave. To fight off a shark and then think to do that."
sharkbait
Site Admin
Posts: 1372
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:04 pm

08/04/2001 Krishna Thompson (Bahamas)

Post by sharkbait »

Bahamas shark attack victim sues Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort for $25 million

Powered by CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network
by JOHN MARZULLI



STUART, Florida (5 Dec 2003) -- A Wall Street banker who lost part of his left leg in a vicious shark attack is suing a Bahamas resort for $25 million, arguing that the hotel should have warned guests about the shark-infested waters nearby.

Krishna Thompson of Central Islip, L.I., nearly bled to death after fighting off the man-eating fish while snorkeling in 5 feet of water during an August 2001 vacation at the posh Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort on Grand Bahama Island.

According to Thompson's lawsuit in Brooklyn Federal Court, the resort's beach is dangerously close to "Shark Junction," where tourists pay to watch frenzied sharks feed.

The complaint also alleges lifeguards failed to rush to Thompson's aid after he was attacked during an early-morning dip.

Thompson, who was celebrating his 10th wedding anniversary, beat off the bloodthirsty shark with his fists, managed to swim to shore and was airlifted to a Miami hospital.

"The hotel knew that there were shark feeding tours taking place nearby. There were no warnings about the sharks. There were no nets put up to prevent the sharks from invading the beachfront," Thompson's lawyer, Derek Sells, told Federal Judge Carol Amon during an October court conference.

Thompson, 38, and his wife, Ave Maria Thompson, who also is suing for $5 million, rejected a $200,000 settlement offer, according to a court transcript obtained by the Daily News.


The resort's legal team is pressing to transfer the lawsuit from Brooklyn to the Bahamas, where payouts for pain and suffering are as rare as shark attacks.

Resort lawyer Frank Raia has said the shark feeding tours are more than a mile from the beach and are run by Bahamian companies with no ties to Our Lucaya.

"Sounds like those parties are potential [defendants] in this case," Raia said during the October hearing. "That's another reason why this case needs to be in the Bahamas."

Thompson, who may need additional surgery on his leg, has indicated he would settle for between $3 million and $6.5 million, which Raia told the judge was "way too high."

Neither Raia nor Sells returned calls last week for comment.


http://www.cdnn.info/industry/i031205a/i031205a.html
Last edited by sharkbait on Sat Jul 14, 2007 1:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
sharkbait
Site Admin
Posts: 1372
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:04 pm

Post by sharkbait »

Swimmer attacked by shark in Bahamas; 2nd in two weeks
CNN August 17, 2001 Posted: 10:36 AM EDT (1436 GMT)

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A shark-attack victim, flown from the Bahamas to Miami late Thursday, was in good condition Friday at Jackson Memorial Hospital, officials said.

The 43-year-old man, who said he was bitten on the left calf while snorkeling, is the second shark-bite victim from Freeport in two weeks.

Officials declined to name the man, though the general manager of the air-ambulance service that brought the victim to the mainland identified him as an American.

The victim was treated at the same hospital as Krishna Thompson, 36, a New York banker who was attacked by a shark August 4 while swimming in the surf off Freeport. Thompson, in the Bahamas with his wife to celebrate their 10-year wedding anniversary, lost his lower left leg.

The latest shark attack highlights a summer in which the finned predators have figured prominently in news headlines and tourists' fears.

A bull shark cruising in knee-deep waters off Gulf Islands National Seasore near Pensacola, Florida, ripped the right arm off 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast on July 6. The boy's uncle retrieved the arm, which surgeons reattached in a 12-hour operation. The Ocean Springs, Mississippi, boy was released from the hospital this week.

In May, a surfer off Jacksonville, Florida, told physicians a shark attacked him, biting his foot twice before swimming away. Also recently, a 48-year-old man was bitten on the leg while surfing near Santa Rosa Island off the Florida Panhandle.

Schools of sharks also massed in the shallows of the Gulf of Mexico just north of Tampa, Florida, earlier this week, attracting throngs of researchers, tourists and reporters.

Puzzled scientists were at a loss to explain why so many sharks, most of them relatively harmless blacktips and nurse sharks, had congregated so suddenly. They were equally nonplussed when the fish dispersed two days later as quickly as they had gathered.

The flurry of sightings and attacks also underscores the release this summer of Michael Capuzzo's "Close to Shore," a book detailing a series of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore in 1916.

Years later, that event inspired Peter Benchley to write "Jaws," which became the 1975 blockbuster film that prompted vacationers everywhere to consider a week in the mountains instead of at the seaside.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/08/17/shark. ... index.html
Post Reply

Return to “2001 Reported Shark Attacks”