A woman has been injured after being attacked by a wild boar while sunbathing on a Costa Blanca beach.
The dramatic moment happened after the disorientated animal rushed out of the sea as lifeguards sounded the alarm and attacked the female pensioner.
Medics who treated her at a local health centre have told local press they believe the victim’s bite injury may have been caused when the wild boar charged at her and collided with her around where its teeth are.
Her “minor” leg injury was cleaned as a precaution and she is believed to been told to take antibiotics to prevent any nasty infection.
Emergency services were alerted just after 11am this morning to the incident at El Albir beach just north of Benidorm.
The animal had been spotted in the water by boat crews who alerted lifeguards on the beach as it began to head for dry land after they made an unsuccessful attempt to catch it.
It is believed to have come from the nearby Serra Gelada Natural Park which consists of over 5,000 acres of protected coastline in the municipalities of Benidorm, Alfaz del Pi and Altea. It is not yet known how it ended up in the sea.
Footage of the extraordinary incident showed locals and tourists screaming and taking cover as the wild boar ran over their towels and along the sand where moments earlier they had been sunbathing themselves in near-30 degree heat.
The nationality of the 67-year-old woman hurt, the only person who was injured, is not yet known.
Lifeguards managed to chase the animal away from the beach and crowded seafront bars and cafes before it caused any more problems.
Its whereabouts this afternoon was unknown.
The drama occurred just days after it emerged that the nearby holiday resort of Denia, which is around a 40-minute drive north, is set to use archers to keep tourists safe from problem wild boars roaming town streets at night.
Officials in Denia previously placed cage traps at strategic points around the municipality to try to reduce the growing numbers of the animals leaving their natural habitat in the countryside to look for food.
The cages were fitted with cameras to enable town hall chiefs to keep count on the amount of wild boars captured and avoid accidents involving people getting trapped by mistake. But the system yielded poor results.
Now, local councillors have confirmed they are in contact with expert archers in a bid to stop the animals eating farmers’ crops, causing traffic accidents, messing up golf courses and in a worst case but rare scenario attacking humans.
The plan to use arrows as weapons has been drafted because bullets are forbidden.
Denia’s environment councillor Maite Perez Conejero confirmed at a full council meeting officials were in talks with the Hunting Federation in Alicante, the province the resort is in, and were studying a coordinated operation involving hunters in different parts of the municipality.
She said she was confident that in just over a fortnight draft proposals outlining how the scheme would work on public and private land would be in place.
Colombian pop star Shakira revealed in September last year she was “attacked” by two wild boar who tried to “rob” her while she was in a park in Barcelona with her son Milan, now nine.
The singer showed off a bag she claimed was destroyed by the animals in a home-made video she posted on Instagram.
The 45-year-old mum-of-two, whose partner is Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique, showed off her handbag as she said of the bizarre incident in an Instagram story: “Look at how two wild boar which attacked me in the park have left my bag.
“They were taking my bag to the woods with my mobile phone in it. They’ve destroyed everything.”
She then added as her son walked off in the background: “Milan tell the truth. Say how your mummy stood up to the wild boar.”
The singer did not detail when the incident took place or which park it occurred in.
Neither Shakira, full name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, or her son appeared to have been injured.
Wild boars have increasingly come into towns and cities to forage for food, with the numbers growing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Barcelona resident Xavier Bosch told just before the incident Shakira was caught up in how he was bitten by a wild boar near the city’s Tibidado Amusement Park after going with his family to watch meteor showers and shooting stars.
He ended up reporting the attack to Barcelona City Hall.
