“Shark!”: Swimmers try to save bleeding man off California beach

Cameron Whiting had just finished a casual 1.5-mile open-water swim and was bodysurfing off Del Mar Beach on Sunday morning when a member of his swim group started screaming.

At first Whiting heard only the horror in her voice, then he processed in his head that she was screaming, “Shark!”

One of the newer members of the swim team – a 46-year-old man whose name was not released – was attacked. The woman closest to him screamed for help.

Since it was still before 9 a.m. and there were no lifeguards on duty, help had to come from the swimmers closest to the man in distress. That was Whiting and another member of the group, Kevin Barrett. The two were about 100 yards offshore while most of the others were back on the beach thinking about breakfast.

Barrett ran toward the man – and the shark – as fast as he could. Whiting, 31, who had trained as a lifeguard at sea, quickly scanned the shore to make sure anyone was calling for help, then began swimming away.

As he waved his arms wildly, two fears fought in his head.

The first was the realization that he was swimming directly towards a shark attack. The second was his fear of what he might find there. Would his fellow swimmer still have all his limbs? Would he still be alive?

“That was what scared me the most,” Whiting said. “Going to him and realizing…”

But when he finished the 45-meter swim behind Barrett, they found the victim conscious and with all limbs intact, although he was bleeding heavily.

They were about 137 meters from shore. It was hard to imagine he could make it alone. When they turned him over, blood began to pour from his wetsuit.

As they were trying to pull him to the beach, a surfer paddled over and offered him his board.

They lifted him onto the surfboard and Whiting climbed behind to paddle. Barrett swam alongside and stabilized the victim. The woman, who had called for help, followed behind.

“That’s when I saw the full extent of the blood,” Whiting recalled. It “splattered from both sides of the board and left a big streak” in the water.

Whiting paddled as fast as he could, thinking that he was “surrounded by blood and that there was still a shark out there.” The trip to shore “felt like an eternity but probably only took a few minutes.”

Eventually they reached a place where they could stand. Rescue workers lifted the man up and carried him, still lying on the board, up the beach.

By this time, lifeguards who were waiting nearby to take up their duties had already rushed to the scene of the accident.

They placed the victim on the back of the ambulance to assess his injuries.

The victim said he was poked once by the shark and then bitten. Then the shark came at him again. He tried to hit it, throwing his fist towards its nose and suffering deep cuts on his arm.

He also had cuts on his upper body from where the shark had bitten him during the first attack.

Whiting said he tried to protect the man from the deep cuts in his chest.

They put a tourniquet around his arm and then put as much gauze as they could on the cuts on his chest.

An emergency doctor who was walking his dog on the beach joined them, examined the wounds and advised the rescuers to continue applying pressure.

Finally the ambulance arrived.

As paramedics hoisted the man inside, Whiting tried to calm him down and tell him everything would be OK.

The man thanked him so calmly that Whiting wondered if he was in shock.

He was taken to hospital and is expected to survive. On Monday he was awake and smiling.

Following the attack, lifeguards closed Del Mar Beach for 48 hours. Officials urged the public to remain calm.

The ocean is full of sharks, and they rarely harm humans, says John Ugoretz, environmental program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. When they do attack, it’s probably because they mistake humans for prey such as seals or sea lions, scientists suspect.

“Since 1950, there have been 215 shark incidents in California,” Ugoretz said. “That’s less than three per year.”

Among them were 16 fatalities.

“It’s incredibly rare to even encounter a shark,” said Ugoretz. “The chances of being stung by a stingray are much, much, much higher.”

One thing is true, however, says Ugoretz: The number of reports of encounters with sharks that did not result in injuries has increased significantly. However, he does not blame the sharks for this.

“Two decades ago, if someone was hit by a car and wasn’t injured, they might have told their friends,” he said. “Today, they tell the whole Internet.”

Government data shows that the number of interactions with sharks that did not result in injury began increasing around 2004, the same year Facebook was founded.

Jonathan Edelbrock, Del Mar’s chief lifeguard and director of community services, said Sunday’s conditions could have been confusing for sharks.

The light was dim and the water murky, he said, similar to the last time a shark attacked a human off Del Mar Beach in November 2022. That swimmer also survived.

Whiting isn’t going to let the incident deter him from the ocean. In fact, he said, some of the swimmers in his group are already planning to get back in the water, albeit at a different beach.

“We all love being out in the sea,” he said.