Sharks have existed on Earth for 450 million years and have survived many animals that were considered the dominant species of predators.
Despite the fact that sharks are deadly to humans, they do not live on the thought of killing us. The probability of falling victim to a shark attack is 1 in 3.7 million. Although shark bites are rare, they do happen. Below are the 10 most famous cases of attacks of these predators on humans.
Heather Boswell
In early 1994, 19-year-old Heather Boswell joined the crew of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) team. She took a job on the ship to help in the kitchen and dining room on an expedition to the South Pacific.
On March 23, 1994, Boswell and eight other crew members swam in the open ocean 480 kilometers from Easter Island. Suddenly, someone saw a shark. Everyone swam as quickly as possible to the boat to escape from the 4-meter great white shark. But not everyone managed to get out of the water safely.
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The first to be attacked by the predator was Phil Buffington, who was bitten on the leg. Boswell was next. When the shark swam up to the girl, she froze in fear, and the animal bit her right leg.
At this time, three crew members had already got out on deck and tried to help Boswell. They got closer, handed Heather a stick, which she even managed to grab onto, but the shark bit her already on the other leg and dragged her under the water. The fish shook the limp body well, but then released it right next to the boat. While the victim was being dragged onto the deck, one of the expedition members hit the shark returning for prey on the head with a stick. The predator still managed to bite off Heather's leg to the very middle of the thigh by that time.
The third person chased by the sea animal was a guy climbing aboard a rope ladder. Fortunately, he managed to climb higher in time and remained unharmed. Buffington and Boswell were flown to the hospital. They survived. The man got 50 stitches, and the girl has been wearing a prosthesis ever since.
Jesse Arbogast
On July 6, 2002, eight-year-old Jessie Arbogast played with his sister and cousin in the shallow waters of a beach in Pensacola, Florida. Vance and Diana Flosenzier (Vance, Diana Flosenzier) - Uncle and Aunt Jesse were about to invite the children to dinner, when one of them shouted: "Shark!"
The adults ran to the shore and saw a bloody spot on the water. The shark grabbed the boy by the right hand and swung it in the water. When the animal finally bit off Jesse's hand, Diana, thanks to passers-by, pulled the child out of the water. In addition to the hand, the predator also bit off a large piece of the boy's thigh. Eventually. Jesse was so drained of blood that he stopped breathing, and it took 10 minutes of heart massage and artificial respiration to bring him back to life.
At this time, Vance managed to grab a two-meter bull shark by the tail and pull it ashore. A local ranger shot the predator, and a bitten off limb was removed from its mouth. Jesse was taken to the hospital where he fell into a coma.
The hand was sewn into place, the leg underwent a reconstructive operation, and after a while the child came to his senses. Unfortunately, during the coma, irreversible consequences occurred, so now the boy is confined to a wheelchair and cannot speak.
La Seine liner disaster
At about 4 am on November 14, 1909, the French cruise ship La Seine collided with the British liner Onda, 42 kilometers off the coast of Singapore. The collision split the French side in half and it sank literally 2 minutes later.
Since most of the ship's passengers slept in their beds at this time, 101 people sank under the water with the ship. Only 61 people managed to get out of La Seyne and escape on boats launched by the crew of the British liner Onda.
But getting to the lifeboats was not easy. The survivors had to fight not only with the darkness and fog, which caused the disaster, but also with sharks. Many of those who made it to the boats were badly bitten by marine predators and needed serious medical attention. However, as far as is known, no one was killed by the shark attack that night.
Rodney Temple
On October 14, 1972, Rodney Temple, Bret Gilliam and Robbie McIlvaine took part in dives during a scientific expedition off the coast of the American island of Santa Cruz (Saint Croix). On that day, divers took underwater photography at a depth of 64 meters. During the dive, Temple saw two long-winged sharks, 3.6 meters long.
During the ascent to the surface, divers had to make several stops to avoid decompression. The last was Rodney. When only a huge air bubble rose from the bottom, researchers Gilliam and McIlwaine suspected something was wrong. Gilliam turned back to help Rodney, and Robbie went upstairs because he was running out of oxygen.
When Bret got to Rodney, he was already bitten by two sharks, one on the thigh and the other on the shin. Gilliam and Temple tried to fend off the bloodthirsty predators, but they succeeded only for a short time. The sharks returned to drag Rodney to the bottom. Bret did not let go of his comrade and also rushed down. When they were at a depth of almost 122 meters, Gillian had to let Temple go, because he was running out of oxygen, and soon he would need help himself.
Bret miraculously managed to float to the surface of the water, although not without decompression, because of which he spent 2 days in the hospital. Unfortunately, Temple's body was never found.
Tamara McAlister and Roy Jeffrey Stoddart
On January 26, 1989, 24-year-old Roy Jeffrey Stoddart and his girlfriend Tamara McAllister sailed off the coast of Malibu and embarked on what was to be a small kayak trip. But when they hadn’t returned by the end of the day, the search began.
A day after their disappearance, the guys' kayaks were found tied together. This is a common practice for kayakers at rest. However, 3 large holes were found in one of the boats, which, according to the authorities, could only have left the teeth of a great white shark.
The next day, Tamara's body was found in the water. The predator bit her legs and buttocks. Roy's body was never found. Presumably after the attack, his body was carried away by the northern current.
Elio Canestri
The French island of Reunion is located east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Its beaches are especially popular with surfers, but between 2011 and 2015, there were 16 shark attacks on athletes and other holidaymakers. Seven of them were fatal.
After the first incidents, the local authorities assigned observers to the beach guards to track down the predators. It was forbidden to enter the water without the supervision of these observers. This is what makes Elio Canestri's story so tragic.
Elio was 15 years old in 2015 and was considered a rising star in local surfing. On April 13, 2015, he left the house, leaving the following note: “Don't worry, Mom. I'm going surfing. If there are no guards there, I will not go into the water. Alas, the teenager did not fulfill his promises. He and 6 other people went swimming without the supervision of official observers.
During the approach to the next wave, just 15 meters from the shore, a shark attacked the guy. She bit him on the stomach and threw him in the air, and then dragged him further into the sea. A rescue boat was sent for the surfer, and Elio even managed to be taken to the hospital, but there he still died from his injuries.
Birkenhead crew
In January 1852, the ship HMS Birkenhead left the harbor of the British military city of Portsmouth and sailed to the shores of Australia. After stopping in the area of Cape Town, the capital of South Africa, on February 25, a military sailboat ran into a barely visible underwater rock. There were 614 men, 7 women and 13 children on board. Many of them were soldiers who were sent to the Australian border wars.
The rock punched a huge hole in the frigate's hull, and it quickly filled with water, drowning hundreds of people in the first minutes. Lifeboats were launched, but they were not enough. The ship's crew decided that first of all it was necessary to save women and children. This was the first time that the "women and children first" rule was introduced. Since then, this norm, called Birkenhead Construction for short, has become the default maritime tradition.
The area where the ship sank was called Shark Alley, because great white sharks often hunted here. The excitement and blood attracted the attention of the predators, and they began to feed on the drowning English. It is difficult to estimate how many people died that day from shark teeth, but witnesses said that a lot of people were killed by sea animals. Of the 643 people on board Birkenhead, only 193 survived. Among them were all 7 women and 13 children.
Black december
The southern coast of the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal was a popular resort. Since 1957, it has also been the site of a number of horrific shark attacks.
The first tragic accident happened on December 18, 1957, when a 16-year-old surfer lost his leg. He survived but was crippled. This incident was followed by 2 fatal attacks: a 15-year-old boy was killed just a day after an accident with a surfer, and 3 days later, sea predators killed a 23-year-old man.
The next victim was a 20-year-old who was bitten by sharks on the head and neck while freediving on December 26 of the same year. The fifth victim was a 14-year-old girl who was attacked by sharks just 4 days after the previous incident. Fortunately, the last 2 people survived. But the next 4 victims were not so lucky, they died from mortal wounds inflicted by the sea predator.
The series of shark attacks was named Black December and ended by April 1958. By that time, 9 people had suffered from sharks and 6 were killed. The attacks shocked tourists and scared people away from the resort, turning the once-thriving village into a veritable ghost town.
To keep the coast safe and bring tourists back, local authorities have set up 38 traps along the coast. During the first year, 1,245 sharks were caught. These measures reduced the risk of attacks by 90%.
Shark attack of 1916
On the night of July 1, 1916, 25-year-old Charles Vansant was swimming near the beach in the resort town of Beach Haven, Pennsylvania (Beach Haven, Pennsylvania) when the guy was attacked by a great white shark. An incredibly brave beach lifeguard rushed into the water to rescue Charles and even pulled him ashore. Unfortunately, the guy died due to severe blood loss at the reception of the nearest hotel, and did not wait for the doctors.
Another attack took place 5 days later. It happened 72 kilometers north of Beach Haven in Spring Lake, New Jersey. 27-year-old Charles Bruder was bitten in the stomach by a shark and tore off his legs. He bled to death on the coast.
The shark then did something rather atypical for its species - it migrated into the fresh waters of the small river Matawan Creek, just 50 kilometers from Spring Lake. A local resident noticed a predatory fish in the stream, but no one in the city believed him. On July 12, a group of frightened boys swept screaming along the main street of the city, claiming that there was a shark in the river, but the locals again did not believe it. According to the guys, the shark attacked their 11-year-old friend Lester Stilwell, who suffered from epilepsy. The townspeople thought that he had drowned due to another attack, and went in search of his body.
The corpse of the child was found and washed ashore by 24-year-old Watson Stanley Fisher, who was also attacked by a great white shark. He fought for his life while the locals watched in shock at the bloody mess on the shore. Watson died in hospital from blood loss.
The last victim of the marine predator was a 14-year-old boy who collided with a shark just half an hour after the attack on Fischer. Young Joseph Dunn was the only one to survive the attack of this great white shark. She grabbed his right leg, but the mother and brother pulled the teenager ashore in time, and he subsequently fully recovered.
The residents of the coast were horrified by the tragic death of four people and the injury of a fifth in a span of just a couple of weeks. President Woodrow Wilson, hearing of what had happened, called a cabinet meeting to decide whether to use funds to remove all bather-feeding carnivorous sharks from the region.
The shark was found a few kilometers from the river in the Raritan Bay area. It was a two-meter male. After the predator almost sank one of the boats, he was finally killed with a broken oar (the president did not fork out for something more). When the fish was cut open, human remains were found in its stomach.
Surprisingly, before these attacks, scientists did not realize that sharks could be so bloodthirsty towards humans. Of course, stories of shark attacks on humans were known, but biologists most often attributed them to fishing tales. In 1916, shark attacks forever changed the perception of their harmlessness. It became clear that they are dangerous to people.
The story of the 1916 New Jersey attacks may remind many of the plot of Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg, but Peter Benchley, author of the novel of the same name, who inspired the film, claims that his were inspired by completely different events. And the fact that what is happening in the novel completely coincides with the chronicle of the events of the beginning of the 20th century is just an amazing coincidence.
The crew of the military cruiser Indianapolis
In the summer of 1954, the American cruiser USS Indianapolis was on a secret mission to deliver spare parts to a military base on Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean. These parts were later used in the creation of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
After delivering the necessary components, the heavy cruiser with 1,200 people on board sailed to the Philippine island of Leyte. But the crew did not manage to reach their destination, since on July 30, 1945, a Japanese submarine fired 6 torpedoes at the cruiser, 2 of which hit right on target. Within 12 minutes, the American ship sank and about 300 people died trying to get out of the sinking ship.
The main reason for so many deaths was that the cruiser was sinking too quickly, and the crew simply did not have time to send a distress signal. In addition, the port to which they were heading did not have at its disposal records of the ship's arrival, since its mission was secret. The representatives of the US Navy in the Philippine Islands had no idea that a heavy cruiser was heading for them. Nobody was waiting for them.
At that time, 900 people were already in the water. There were not enough boats for everyone, and the soldiers had to swim towards the coast in life jackets. Unfortunately, the noise from the explosion and human blood in the water caught the attention of sharks. On the first day, sea predators ate the corpses of drowned soldiers. But soon they became interested in living people bleeding. This forced the team to isolate the wounded.
In addition, the surviving crew faced an acute problem of food. Not many food packages were saved from the sinking cruiser - there was not enough food for everyone. And it was impossible to use cans of ration, because the smell of meat dishes inevitably attracted hungry sharks. After they immediately surrounded several soldiers who opened a can of stew, it was decided not to risk it anymore.
Over the next few days, the survivors were washed into the waters, where sharks were especially abundant. Dehydration and overheating caused hallucinations, and sailors began drinking salt water, leading to fatal poisoning.
Finally, 4 days after the Indianapolis cruiser crashed, a military pilot noticed people in the water and called for help. A few hours later, when the plane dropped food and boats into the water, the same pilot noticed that sharks continued to attack sailors. Against all orders, he landed the plane and took seriously wounded soldiers on board. The remaining crew members of the sunken cruiser were rescued after midnight on August 3, after 5 days of survival in sea water.
Of the 900 crew members who got out of the sinking ship, only 317 people survived. This incident was the largest US military disaster, as well as the worst precedent for shark attacks in human history. It is believed that in those days, from the jaws of these marine predators, from several dozen to 150 people died.