"Shark Attack Survivors News Archive"

06/02/2009 Nil ( Egypt )

Listing of the Shark Attack Related Incidents occurring in 2009. 2009 Shark Attacks
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sharkbait
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06/02/2009 Nil ( Egypt )

Post by sharkbait »

As soon as I was on the boat and took off my BCD and tank I heard screams on the diving platform and I came down immediatly. The shark was on the surface attacking my dive group bullying and trying to bite. No one was snorkeling.


We first learned of this incident on a french forum. http://www.plongeur.com/forums/showthre ... ge=1&pp=20

Translated Version:

"Hello friends. I was in St John the day of the attack and the days after and things are not as easy as they seem. I was on the "Beau Rivage" liveaboard with a group of french and belgian divers (only spanish on board). During the nights two more liveaboards tied to us, "Nautile" (where the dead french diver was staying) and "Diving City".

We did not find out about the attack until the next day (Nautile had left to reach the coast), and also after our group suffered an attack, probably from the same shark.

The day after of the deadly attack we were finishing a dive, when we saw a big longimanus under our boat. I saw him give a couple of passes, but I only had 40 bar left and I decided to finish the dive and ascend as we were under the ladder. So I informed my dive buddy, a belgian called Luck. He did not have much air either but decided to stay with the group to watch the shark and take more pictures.

As soon as I was on the boat and took off my BCD and tank I heard screams on the diving platform and I came down immediatly. The shark was on the surface attacking my dive group bullying and trying to bite. No one was snorkeling.

The crew members of the ship were trying to scare away the shark from the ladder with broomsticks and the divers were climbing to the diving platform and a nearby RIB while some were suffering panic shocks. In the ladder the longimanus tried to bite Luck but only it managed to rub it (I believe that for the broomsticks), doing a tear to in his wetsuit, and a cut of approximately 3 cm in the shoulder. The only one that was staying in the water was our guide Nil (he did not climb up until all of us were on board), in between the RIB and the ladder. The shark went for him, Nil bent the knees and struck it with the heels in the face, while the RIB was approaching him. We do not know exactly what happened, Nil says that while he was being lifted up the RIB with tank and all, he felt something strange in the hand and withdrew it rapidly. It was again the longimanus that was to his side and that bit a cut of approximately 7 cm in the fourth finger and back of the left hand and a cut in the back of the third finger. I am a doctor and I checked that there was no affected tendon so applied plastic stitches (stir-streep) and compressive . Nil did not want to suspend the cruise to go to land, he refused blatantly. Luckily we had antibiotic, antiinflammatory and everything necessary.

Later and in the night, after having cruised more than 3 hours north to change the diving area, we met the Diving City and found out what happened the previous day. The captain of the Diving visited us in the night and told us what had happenned to the french diver. He also told us that they had lost many meters of ropes, because when they were trying to untie themselves from the reef, a longimanus was approaching the crew members UP THE REEF AND OVER THE SHALLOWS. They finally chose to cut the ropes with a knife and leave.

So the attack to the french diver was while she was snorkeling, but the one to our group was while on scuba though in surface or close to it. The Captain said that he had never seen something similar in 20 years working the route. It is clear that this was a very strange OWT behaviour. I have photos of the shark, minutes before the assault, also of Nil's wounds, that did not lose the hand for a matter of seconds... "


http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?sh ... 0702&st=40

Second person bitten in two days in Egypt
Second person bitten in two days in Egypt
egypt_2_2009.jpg (180.71 KiB) Viewed 16108 times
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