FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A sunny afternoon at the beach for a young boy ended when a shark swam up in water only a few feet deep and bit his foot, Delray Beach Fire Rescue officials said Monday.
The adolescent boy and two friends were standing in below-knee-deep water in Highland Beach, between Delray Beach and Boca Raton, when a shark about 4 feet long quickly swam toward him, bit his foot and swam off, said Dani Moschella, Delray Beach Fire Rescue spokesperson.
Fire rescue officials found the boy in the 3000 block of South Ocean Boulevard about 4 p.m. and bandaged the “small but deep” cut underneath his big toe, Moschella said.
He was taken to Bethesda Hospital in good condition but will likely need stitches, Moschella said.
Though Florida has consistently ranked first worldwide in the number of shark bites each year for decades, they are still rare, according to bites tracked by the Florida Museum of Natural History. In 2021, 28 people were bitten by sharks, with two people being bitten in Miami-Dade County, one in Broward and one in Palm Beach County.
The majority of shark bites worldwide in 2021 happened to people surfing or participating in board sports, according to the museum’s International Shark Attack File, while people swimming or wading made up 39% of the bites.
Palm Beach County beaches have seen just 81 “confirmed unprovoked” bites in nearly 150 years, the museum’s data shows. There have been 16 in Broward County and 19 in Miami-Dade.
The majority of shark attacks happen in shallow waters, the museum’s website says, usually near sandbars where sharks feed or stay during low tide. “Hit and run” bites, where the shark bites a swimmer or surfer, swims off and doesn’t return, are the most common type of bite and are likely “cases of mistaken identity” caused by a shark’s poor visibility in the waters, according to the museum.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s website on sharing the waters with sharks says they come closer to shore in the spring and summer months, making the height of shark activity April through October, but the odds of an attack are still rare.
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