Shark Attacks Man In Cape Cod, Leaves Deep Bite Wounds

A 61-year-old man was bitten by a shark just 30 yards off shore of a Cape Cod beach in Massachusetts on Wednesday afternoon.

Gary Sharpless, an assistant harbormaster in Truro, said the attack happened at around 4 p.m. EDT at the Long Nook Beach, on the Atlantic Ocean side of the peninsula. He added that the man suffered deep puncture wounds on his torso and legs.

The injured man was airlifted to a hospital for treatment by a MedFlight helicopter from the Cape Cod National Seashore headquarters in South Wellfleet to Tufts Medical Center. According to Truro fire Chief Timothy Collins, the man was still "conscious and talking" as he was transported. "We're hoping for the best," Collins said.

Witnesses to the attack said there were over 10 seals nearby when the incident happened, reported Cape Cod Times. The man told the rescuers he was standing in shallow water when he was bitten by something.

He was found lying along the shore by Kerstin Peter Leitner and Molly Tobin. "He had a large wound in his lower left leg," Tobin, a graduate from the Connell School of Nursing at Boston College, said.

"We grabbed all the towels that we could, put them on him to stop the bleeding," Kerstin Peter Leitner, another nursing school graduate, said.

“You could almost see his bone,” Michael Sheridan of Philadelphia, told Boston Globe.“I thought he was dying right there. I thought he was going to bleed out on this beach.”

"Unfortunately, there's no cellphone service, so someone had to run up to a house to call 911," Tobin added.

“It was a shark bite,” Seashore Chief Ranger Leslie Reynolds said. She added that Gregory Skomal, the state’s shark expert will be confirming the type of shark that was involved in the attack. According to reports, the great white shark population in the region saw a dramatic increase due to an abundance of seals in the last decade.

In this summer, numerous shark sightings were reported in the area, several of them being of great whites.

“Encounters with white sharks in which people suffer injuries are as terrifying as they are rare,” Cynthia Wigren, CEO of Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, said. “While we still don’t know all of the details of this particular bite, sharks are not known to target people specifically, and when they do bite people, it’s usually a case of mistaken identity.”

The victim's name and hometown were not disclosed by the Truro police. The beach was closed due to the attack until further notice.

The last time a shark attack happened in Cape Cod was in July 2012. Christopher Myers from Denver, Colorado, was bitten in the feet and legs by a great white shark. The incident happened while he was swimming offshore at Ballston Beach. His tendons were surgically repaired. He survived with 47 stitches.

Prior to that, a 46-year-old man who was collecting starfish was bitten by a shark in Cape Cod in July 1996.