"Shark Attack Survivors News Archive"

05/23/2021 - Wyatt Bowman 26 yr - South Carolina

Recent Shark Attack in 2021 Information on Shark Attacks in 2021 Latest Shark Attacks all here at Shark Attack Survivors
Post Reply
alb
Posts: 1569
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 7:41 pm

05/23/2021 - Wyatt Bowman 26 yr - South Carolina

Post by alb »

Man bitten by shark while swimming off Hilton Head: ‘He took a big ole bite out of me’

When the fish started to jump, Wyatt Bowman knew he was in trouble.

The 26-year-old was swimming at Hilton Head Island’s Burkes Beach Sunday when fish began to pop out of the water around him, around 220 yards offshore.

“I knew immediately they only do that to avoid a predator, so I started swimming back,” he recalled.

But he couldn’t swim fast enough.

A shark caught up with him about 50 yards offshore, and just a second or two after a fish jumped out of the water next to him trying to save itself, he felt a rush of pressure as teeth slid into his heel.

A shark, which he estimated to be about five feet long, bit the bottom of his heel and “shredded” his lower ankle around his Achilles tendon.

“He took a big ole bite out of me,” Bowman said.

But adrenaline kicked in. At first, Bowman said he didn’t feel much pain. He knew he had to get back to shore immediately, so he kept swimming.

He made it back to the beach and halfway up the sand before looked down at his bleeding ankle and collapsed. Then the pain set in.

A Shore Beach Service lifeguard and an off-duty nurse helped take care of him. When emergency medical services arrived moments later, they told Bowman the bite was serious.

Bowman made it to Hilton Head Hospital, where he was directed to get orthopedic surgery to repair his ankle. The bite left a three inch gash in his Achilles tendon, but he’s lucky it didn’t sever.

“On my heel there are three perfect rows of teeth, and they are pretty deep,” he said.

He’s not able to walk on the injury for three to four weeks, so Bowman is holed up in his home in Okatie. He said when he stumbles or bumps his foot on something, the pain is “excruciating.”

But the experience, although painful and scary, won’t stop Bowman from getting back in the water, he said.

“Oh yeah, I’ll swim again,” he said. “I’m not mad at the shark. He was hunting, and I just happened to get in the way. If anything, I have better appreciation and a little more understanding of sharks.”

“First off: any time you enter the ocean, you’re going into a completely different environment,” he added. “We’re no longer the top predator when you’re out there. They play by their own rules.”

Hilton Head’s waters are home to 17 different kinds of sharks, according to marine biologist Amber Kuehn.

Most commonly spotted off Hilton Head is the Atlantic Sharpnose shark, which grows to about four feet.

As the water warms and becomes more murky due to an influx of microorganisms growing, Kuehn said sharks are more likely to be closer to shore.

“There’s more food in the water when it’s warmer because that’s when everything spawns, and there are probably more bait fish in the water,” she said.

Still, shark bites are far less common than stingray and jellyfish stings on Hilton Head’s beaches.

Bowman’s effort to get away from jumping fish also may have saved his life.

“If you start noticing fish jumping out of the water, chances are they’re evading a bigger predator,” he said.


https://www.charlotteobserver.com/
We have another tool we are building at https://sharkattacks.net
Post Reply

Return to “2021 Shark Attacks Recent Shark Attack in 2021”