Member Since: 7/31/2007
Posts: 8,201
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Shark attack stirs Manhattan Beach holiday weekend crowd
Quote:
Lance Nelson spent Saturday morning surfing the choppy waves south of Manhattan Beach Pier, just like he has most days this summer.
More umbrellas than usual dotted the shoreline, signs of the Fourth of July holiday weekend crowd. Other than that, the 13-year-old, who lives in the neighborhood, said things seemed normal. Until 9:30 a.m.
He heard a shrill, top-of-your lungs scream and turned toward a man flailing in the water nearby. Then he heard other people screaming: “Get a lifeguard! Get a lifeguard!”
Nelson started to paddle toward the man but then got spooked. “I saw blood spread through the water,” he said. “It was just like a movie, but worse.” A seven-foot juvenile great white shark had attacked a swimmer near the pier, authorities said.
The unidentified victim, described as a long-distance swimmer between 35 and 40 years of age, suffered a single bite wound on the right side of his rib cage. He was taken to Harbor UCLA Medical Center and was described as stable.
Witness Aram Ozen was also surfing out near the end of the pier when the attack occurred.
At first, Ozen said, people thought the victim was having trouble swimming. Then Ozen suddenly heard a couple of people screaming, “White, white!” referring to a great white shark.
“It was a scary scream,” Ozen said. “It was kind of freaky. There was a lot of people screaming back to shore.”
Ozen said other surfers started paddling out to help the victim back to shore as officials cleared everyone out of the water.
“I saw blood on his right rib,” he said. “He was a little bit in shock.”
Witnesses told authorities that the shark bit the anchovies-and-sardines bait on the hook a fisherman had thrown into the water from the edge of the Manhattan Beach Pier. They said the shark was hooked for about 45 minutes and was thrashing around in the water when he bit the swimmer about 9:30 a.m.
“He was trying to get off the line,” said Capt. Tracy Lizotte, a Los Angeles County lifeguard at the beach. “He was agitated and was probably biting everything in his way and then the swimmer swam right into the shark's line.
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A google search quickly fixed that 
