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10/9/2004 Davy Sanada (Hawaii)

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10/9/2004 Davy Sanada (Hawaii)

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10/9/2004 Davy Sanada 34 Left shoulder bitten Molokai Hawaii USA Spearfishing 12:40:00 PM 8' tiger shark
sharkbait
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Hawaii shark attack victim thought he would die from blood loss

Monday, October 11, 2004

(10-11) 15:21 PDT HONOLULU (AP) --

An Oahu man who was attacked by a shark while spearfishing off Molokai says he doubted he could survive because he lost so much blood.

Davy Sanada was transferred Monday to Queen's Medical Center, where he will undergo surgery to repair a severe injury to his left shoulder. He was reported in stable condition before leaving Maui Memorial Hospital.

Sanada, 34, a Pearl Harbor pipefitter, was free diving alone in shallow water outside Kupeke Fishpond on Molokai when he was attacked just after noon Saturday.

After rescuers stabilized him at the site, Sanada was airlifted to the Maui hospital.

Sanada said he was swimming back to shore when the shark "came out of nowhere" and bit him. "Something had me, then I started flailing away at it," he said.

Sanada said he stood up after the shark let go, and saw his blood spreading in the water around him. When he saw the shark coming back, he started hitting it with his spear gun and the shark swam away.

After the attack, Sanada said he pulled his wet suit over his shoulder to halt the bleeding and headed for shore.

"I must have been 200 yards offshore," he said. "I had lost a lot of blood. I was getting dizzy. It was an ordeal, but I was yelling for help, and nobody was responding."

Finally, resident Carol Beadle heard him, called 911 and then paddled out to him in a kayak. She took him to the rock wall of the fishpond, where a friend, a former firefighter, helped him until paramedics and firefighters arrived.

Sanada said he believes the shark, which rescuers estimated to be 12 feet long, was attracted by his bag of speared fish about 30 feet behind him.

"I'm missing a small chunk of my shoulder," he said, adding that it's unclear if he will regain full use of his arm. He also said he's not sure if he will go diving again.

He said he has seen sharks while free diving elsewhere, and they have never approached him.

"If I see a shark, I give them all the room in the world," he said. "We respect each other. You've got to realize that's their domain and give them all the respect."

State Shark Task Force member John Naughton said it is unusual for a shark to attack a swimmer midday in shallow water, but said the fish Sanada had caught probably attracted the shark.

The attack was the first off Molokai since 1992 and the second this year in Hawaiian waters. On April 7, surfer Willis McInnis, 57, was killed by a shark in murky water off Kahana on Maui.

POINT REYES



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... T7859.DTLL
sharkbait
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Post by sharkbait »

Shark attack victim facing long recovery

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer


Davy Sanada, whose shoulder was ripped apart by a shark off Moloka'i, left The Queen's Medical Center yesterday morning — apparently happy to be going home and grateful to have both arms.


Davy Sanada, his left arm in a sling, spoke at an impromptu news conference yesterday following his discharge from The Queen's Medical Center.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

But now he faces what could be a series of surgeries to repair his left shoulder along with protracted therapy.

Before leaving the hospital, Sanada, 34, paused in an eighth floor corridor for a hastily arranged news conference to thank the doctors and staff that have cared for him at Queen's. He also thanked his family and bystanders, firefighters, emergency personnel, doctors and others who helped rescue and treat him after he was attacked Oct. 9 by what is thought to have been an 8-foot tiger shark.

Looking as if he had lost his left arm, which was actually in a sling beneath his maroon and tan aloha shirt, Sanada wiggled his fingers to show reporters that his hand still functions. So does his elbow, although the pipefitter at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard no longer has the ability to move the arm laterally or over his head.

Other than saying thanks, Sanada spoke little. His left chin and cheek revealed lacerations that are still healing from the attack. He deferred questions to his orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Morris Mitsunaga.

Mitsunaga outlined what happened and how doctors intend to treat Sanada. He said the shark — which attacked Sanada without warning in shallow waters outside Molokai's Kupeke Fishpond as he was coming ashore after diving — "took out about a third to half of his shoulder muscles."

The surgeon referred to Sanada as a "brave young man" and credited him for initially treating the injury by throwing his wet suit over his shoulder to curtail the extreme loss of blood. Sanada was later flown from Moloka'i to Maui Memorial Medical Center, where orthopedic surgeon William Dixon performed surgery to close the wound.

The diver was taken to Queen's on Oct. 11 and Mitsunaga operated on him three days later. Most of the damage to the back of Sanada's shoulder was caused by the shaking action of the shark's clamped jaws.

"The way the shark got him was that the bottom teeth were in the front and the top teeth were in the back, and it did a kind of sawing type of thing," Mitsunaga said. "It was trying to take his whole arm out."

What helped Sanada was that the shark let go and that Sanada was able to drive the animal away by poking it with his spear when it returned. Mitsunaga said had the shark bitten him a second time, Sanada would most likely have lost the limb.

Mitsunaga said Sanada could require additional surgery to transfer muscles from his side to replace those that are missing or that no longer function in his back.

"The big thing right now is that the wound in closed up and everything looks fine," he said. "He's going home, and we'll have to do a lot of intensive rehab.

"It's good that his hand and elbow work fine."

As for his ability to return to his job as a pipefitter, the doctor said time will tell.

"It's going to be a long while before we can find out if he can return to that type of work," he said.

Meanwhile, a co-worker and friend, pipefitter Kevin Seitz, said Sanada's fellow union members, aware that it will be months before he could return to work, plan to donate leave time to him. Sanada is a pipefitter at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard Shop 56.

"Otherwise, he'll use his up," Seitz said. "This way, he won't have to worry about it. We're working with our union steward so that people in our shop can donate leave specifically to Davy."

Seitz said it's encouraging to know Sanada has the use of his hand and elbow.

"It's good to know," he said. "We were all concerned about that."

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/artic ... ln02p.html
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