Shark Attacks and Shark Attack Related Incidents News Articles on Shark Bites

1 hurt in possible shark attack

Woman taken to hospital following incident
By Aliana Ramos - The Sun News

A woman was in stable condition after a possible shark bite at Garden City Beach on Saturday night, said Cpt. Scott Gosnell of Garden City-Murrells Inlet Fire Department.

The woman's name was not released late Saturday.

The reported shark attack happened at 5 p.m. near Pompano Drive at Garden City Beach, said police and eyewitnesses. The woman was taken to Waccamaw Community Hospital for treatment of a leg injury, Gosnell said.

"As far as we know, it was shark bite to the leg," he said.

Jessica Hotzelt, 16, of Surfside Beach, and a group of her friends were 15 to 20 feet from where the woman was injured.

"We heard this horrific scream. I was scared," Hotzelt said.

The woman was in the water to about the middle of her thighs when she started screaming. When she came out of the water, she had three gashes on the bottom half of her leg, said Matt Mitchell, 18, of Murrells Inlet.

The S.C. Department of Natural Resources has not had any other reports of shark bites this year, said Lt. Robert McCullough, a spokesman for the DNR.

But, he said, the DNR is not mandated to keep track of annual shark bites.

The odds of being attacked by a shark are 1 in 11.5 million, according figures compiled by the University of Florida's Shark Attack File in 2000, the most recent available.

There were 39 shark attacks in the United States in 2006, and four in South Carolina, according to the university group's shark studies.

On July 10, 2006, 14-year-old Caelin Lacy of West Palm Beach, Fla., was bitten by a shark at a beach in Georgetown County.

On Sept. 20, 2005, Clair Parrett, 68, of New York was hurt on her fingers, calf and heel after being bitten by a shark in North Myrtle Beach.

Contact ALIANA RAMOS at 357-9520 aramos@thesunnews.com.


http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/l ... 81488.html

Shark Attacks N. Texas Woman at S.C. Beach

(CBS 11 News) Susan Dornquast was at a South Carolina beach standing knee-deep when she felt something brush against her legs.

It turned out to be a bull shark.

"They said this one could be about a five footer. I couldn't imagine one that big coming up to shore like that," the victim explained. "Well, I didn't know that much about sharks."

That day while she took a break from a bowling tournament, she learned a lesson that will last a life time.

Now resting at home back in North Texas, the woman's leg clearly shows the animal's markings and more than 40 stitches.

From the size of the mouth mark -- 9 inches wide -- doctors estimate the bull shark was 5 feet long, which is 1 foot shy of similar 6-foot bull sharks that live at the Dallas World Aquarium.


Moments before the attack, Dornquast and her husband were taking pictures along the shore line at South Carolina's Murrell Inlet beach.

"I felt it hit this leg and I thought that was more than water," she recalled. "And, I looked down and I seen the shark going off. I went to move this leg and I thought, 'uh, oh, something's wrong. That shark must've got my leg.' "

A local marine biologist said it's not uncommon to find sharks close to shore.

"Sharks, especially the bull sharks like we have in here, tend to feed in shallow water towards the later afternoons and early mornings," the Aquarium's Paula Branshaw explained.

Branshaw called the attack "a case of mistaken identity." The chances of a shark attack are 1 in 11.5 million, she added.

Following Dornquast's encounter, she let a Myrtle Beach paper know and displays their story about her experience.

She thankful it wasn't worse.

"I can walk on it, move my foot. The Lord blessed me with that."

Dornquast also is thankful no one else was injured, including the mother and toddler who waded close by her. She does not want to know what would have happened if the child had been in the water.

http://cbs11tv.com/pets/local_story_153224744.html

Victim recounts shark attack

Texas visitor goes home to recover after surgery

By Monique Newton - The Sun News

Just minutes after Susan Dornquast and her husband posed for a picture standing knee-deep in the ocean off Garden City Beach, a 5-foot shark mauled her right calf.

Susan Dornquast was standing alone in the water after Donald Dornquast returned to shore to assist a cousin with the camera about 4 p.m. Saturday.

"I just kind of turned around to watch the ocean waves come in, and that's when the shark hit me," Susan Dornquast said Thursday from Fort Worth, Texas.

At the time of the attack, she was in town visiting cousin Barbara Wyman of Darlington.

"I felt him hit my left leg, and I seen him scurry off, and that's when I knew he got my other leg."

Dornquast said she didn't see the shark coming.

"All I seen was the bubbles from the water," she said.

Dornquast described the animal as having a grayish color.

"I didn't see a fin or nothing on the shark," she said. "It went away fast."

Dornquast said she started toward shore before falling into the water.

"I was crawling, trying to get away because I was scared the shark would come back," she said. "I never let out a big scream or nothing. I just kept yelling, 'Don, Don, Come get me! I was hit by a shark!'"

Wyman said she and Donald Dornquast could tell Susan Dornquast was distressed.

"You could tell by her face that it was something out of the ordinary," Wyman said.

Donald Dornquast ran to his wife in the water and, with the help of another man, carried her back to shore.

"I was just hoping and praying that she would have a leg," said Donald Dornquast. "Getting hit by a shark, you always hear about how they take the whole thing."

That fear soon faded away.

"Once we saw that she could move her feet, her toes and everything, we knew that more than likely she was going to have use of her leg," he said.

While Wyman ran to her car to get her cell phone and dial 911, Susan Dornquast applied pressure to her right leg, which was wrapped with three towels.

"I was thanking my God above me that he had his guardian angels looking down on me and thanking him that I had my feet," she said. She said she wasn't in any pain.

She was rushed to Waccamaw Community Hospital, where doctors cleaned her wounds before she underwent a 1½-hour surgery.

"They cleaned it up really good and then put it all back together," Dornquast said.

No arteries or major blood vessels were affected, she said. She received more than 40 stitches, with 28 on the outside of her leg.

"They say that with a 9-inch bite, it was about a 5-foot shark," Dornquast said.

"I just want people to know that it can happen in shallow water, not just deep water," she said. "I didn't realize they would come up that far."

The incident didn't scare Dornquast away from oceans completely, but she does plan to take precautions.

"I'll be ankle deep," she said. "I don't think I'll go out too far in the water - just along the edges."

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/l ... 86303.html