‘It was a pretty good cut.’ Tourist bitten by a shark near Disney’s Vero Beach Resort
Padding around on a boogie board near a Florida Disney resort became a painful reminder for a 54-year-old man that we share the ocean with a whole host of characters.
According to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, a shark of unspecified breed took a bite out of the man’s leg around 10:30 a.m. Thursday while he was swimming in the ocean near Disney’s Vero Beach Resort.
Two bites, actually.
“It was a pretty good cut,” Ken Obrzut, a tourist from Ohio who saw the man in distress, told TCPalm. “You could see the calf was opened.”
The man was about 30 to 40 feet out into the ocean when he was bitten.
“I saw his face change,” Obrzut told TCPalm. “And then he started trying to get out of the water as fast as he could.”
Paramedics from Indian River County Fire Rescue say the man had injuries on both sides of his leg in the knee area and to his calf. Authorities did not release his identity.
Fire rescue Battalion chief Roger Dion told VeroNews.com the man was staying at the resort with his wife. Disney Resort medical staffers also tended to the man, according to reports.
Deputies from the sheriff’s office say he was taken to a nearby medical center and was stable and alert and that his wounds were not life-threatening.
According to a University of Florida shark activity study, the state’s 16 bites in 2020 represented a drop from 21 the previous year. But Florida’s 1,350 miles of coastline remains a global hotspot for shark bites and represents 28% of incidents worldwide.
