SHARK ATTACKS 2ND TEEN OFF FLORIDA PANHANDLE

[Jeb]

Shark Attacks 2nd Teen Off Fla. Panhandle

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story...._news_0405shark

 

 

By BILL KACZOR

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - A teenage boy was bitten and critically injured Monday in the second shark attack in three days along the Florida Panhandle.

 

The boy, whose age and name were not released, was taken to Bay Medical Center in Panama City. The nature of his injuries was not immediately released.

 

He was attacked off Cape San Blas, a popular vacation destination about 80 miles southeast of the Destin area, where 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, La., was killed by a shark on Saturday.

 

Daigle had been swimming on a boogie board with a friend about 100 yards from shore when a shark tore away the flesh on one leg from her hip to her knee.

 

 

Erich Ritter of the Shark Attack Institute said the girl was probably attacked by a 6-foot bull shark, based on measurements of the bite wound. He said it was unlikely the same shark was responsible for Monday's attack.

 

After Saturday's attack, a 20-mile stretch of shore was closed to swimmers, but beaches reopened Sunday with a double staff of sheriff's beach patrol officers.

 

Florida averaged more than 30 shark attacks a year from 2000 to 2003, but there were only 12 attacks off the state's coast last year, according to figures compiled by the American Elasmobranch Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

 

On the Net:

 

International Shark Attack File: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm

 

 

06/27/05 14:54

 

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