According to Florida authorities, the fourth shark attack within a week was committed on a boy in Missouri

A 14-year-old boy from Missouri was bitten by a shark while visiting a beach in Florida, officials said.

Wednesday’s incident is the fourth shark attack in Volusia County within a week.

Just before noon, the teenager was standing in knee-deep water at Daytona Beach Shores when the shark bit him on his left foot. He was hospitalized with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, according to the Volusia County Beach Safety Department.

The species of shark is unknown.

The attack came just two days after another 14-year-old was bitten about 6 miles down the coast in Ponce Inlet, McClatchy News reported. The teen was attending a lifeguard camp when he jumped into the water and landed on a shark, which bit him in the calf, officials said.

After the incident, he told WOFL that in his opinion there is “nothing to be afraid of.”

“Because I think something like this is really rare to happen,” he told the outlet. “And if it happened once, I doubt it will happen again.”

On July 4, an Ohio tourist was bitten while playing football, and the next day a Sarasota man was bitten while wading in an inflatable boat, McClatchy News reported.

According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Volusia County has been unofficially named the “Shark Bite Capital of the World,” and the data suggests that name may well be justified.

The International Shark Attack File has recorded 351 unprovoked attacks in Volusia County, far more than any other county in Florida and more than any other state in the United States.

According to John Carlson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shark attacks are “extremely rare.”

“You are more likely to get into a car accident and get injured on the way to the beach than while swimming,” he said in a video posted on the NOAA website.

In 2023, the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File examined 120 interactions between sharks and humans worldwide. Of these interactions, 69 were unprovoked shark bites and there were 14 “shark-related fatalities.”

However, if you see a shark in the water, don’t panic, Richard Peirce, former chairman of the Shark Trust and Shark Conservation Society, told CNN.

“Don’t start splashing around – you will only arouse, stimulate and encourage the shark’s interest,” he told the news agency.

Instead, maintain eye contact with the shark and read its body language. If the shark appears to be in “attack mode,” make yourself as big as possible, CNN reported. If it looks like it’s just going to swim by, try to stay small.

Experts told CNN that you should not play dead if you are attacked by a shark.

“You have to try to keep the animal in sight and swim very slowly and carefully backwards and get into shallow water,” Peirce told CNN. “Again, you have to be careful — large sharks can attack at very shallow depths.”

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