A 12-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy attacked,
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A pair of separate shark attacks that occurred in rapid succession in the same area off the coast of North Carolina has jarred the residents of Oak Island, where the attacks occurred.
Two young people who were on vacation were swimming in waist-deep water Sunday evening when they each lost a limb in separate, life-threatening attacks, town officials released, according to the Associated Press.
A 12-year-old girl visiting from Asheboro, N.C., was the first victim, and lost part of her left arm when she was attacked near the Ocean Crest Fishing Pier at 4:40 p.m., reported Fox News.
A little more than an hour later, at 5:51 p.m., medics rushed to a second shark attack about two miles away. In the second incident a 16-year-old-boy who was visiting from Colorado Springs, Colo. lost his entire left arm.
WGHP disclosed bait in the water may have attracted the sharks that attacked the two teens.
While the beaches remained open, while Oak Island Mayor Betty Wallace told the Wilmington Star-News the second attack “happened so quickly” that there was little time to alert swimmers.
Currently, Oak Island has no lifeguards, and town manager Tim Holloman said Monday, and The Guardian reported the town has no plan to put lifeguards on the beaches.
“We don’t have any changes in policy for lifeguards,” Holloman stated. “I don’t believe that in these particular incidents it would have made a difference.”
George Burgess, a shark expert at the University of Florida’s ichthyology department, told The British newspaper that officials should “consider closing the beach, getting extra lifeguards in the area, and constituting their search patterns or whatever so you can radio down to safety personnel down below,” if a shark is sighted.
“Those are the kinds of things that are required at this point, as well as an educational campaign to users of those beaches that in fact it is a wilderness experience when we enter the ocean.”
Unprovoked shark attacks on humans are extremely rare. There were 72 around the world in 2014, including 52 in the U.S., according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Of the three fatalities reported, none were off the coasts of the United States.