The US coast guard has released dramatic footage of a fisher being lifted to a helicopter after being bitten on the arm by a shark.
The coast guard in Miami was contacted on Monday by the crew of “the motor vessel Shear Water”, the agency said in a statement.
The crew reported “a man aboard who had been bitten by a shark while fishing and that a tourniquet had been placed on the man’s arm to prevent further blood loss”.
The man was bitten onboard. It was not clear what sort of shark was involved.
A helicopter responded to the scene, near the Bahamas, and extracted the 51-year-old.
Footage released by the coast guard showed the man being winched from the moving boat in choppy seas, one arm heavily bound.
“This was the best possible outcome to a truly terrifying situation,” said Sean Connett, command duty officer at US coast guard district seven, in Miami.
“This individual was fortunate a fellow crew member was able to render aid prior to the coast guard’s arrival which allowed for a quick extraction from the vessel.”
#BREAKING @USCG Air Station Miami air crews rescued a 51-year-old man, Monday, after he was bitten by a shark while fishing aboard a vessel near #Bimini, #Bahamas. #SearchAndRescue
— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) February 22, 2022
More here: https://t.co/Ee7XiDQ06z pic.twitter.com/ocuhDrdQvo
The International Shark Attack File, at the University of Florida, distinguishes between provoked and unprovoked bites.
Unprovoked bites, it says, “are defined as incidents in which a bite on a live human occurs in the shark’s natural habitat with no human provocation of the shark.
“Provoked bites occur when a human initiates interaction with a shark in some way. These include instances when divers are bitten after harassing or trying to touch sharks, bites on spear-fishers, bites on people attempting to feed sharks, bites occurring while unhooking or removing a shark from a fishing net and so forth.”
In 2021, the ISAF recorded 73 unprovoked bites and 39 provoked.
The risk that a human will be bitten or killed by shark remains extremely low. . Many more are killed each year by toasters, chairs and other household items.
In 2021, the ISAF also recorded four “boat bites”, in which sharks bit boats. Sharks often use biting as an exploratory tool.
