Marine Life Teen diver bitten by shark, loses leg in Belize

[Seaweed Doc]

Grateful that the crew handled this correctly and that the poor girl is stable. (DISCLAIMER!) I am not a shark or marine biology expert, but I tend to think this was caused by a bull or tiger shark versus a reef shark.

Though I've spent a lot of time in Belize (further south, mostly) and I'm a marine biologist, sharks aren't my thing either. (/DISCLAIMER)

I've seen lemons as well in the vicinity of Half Moon Caye, so might add that to the list of possible suspects. A guy I knew decades ago got bit by a bull shark diving in the Blue Hole. It was back in the day of legal spearfishing there, and he had a dead fish with him....

I think it was about 4-5 years ago when the guides at HMC told us that blacktips would circle us when we first descended and decide if we were food or not (their words). They'd realize we weren't, and go on their way. That in fact did happen. (The circling, anyway. I'm not a shark mindreader.) I've dived there since and never saw a shark. I'm guessing they come and go. I've never thought they were dangerous, but the behavior I saw seemed consistent with the guides' story of what was going on.

It's worth noting that despite rapid helicopter evacuation, it's not a short trip to the ER from HMC. Where I teach most of my SCUBA students at home, an ambulance with sirens could get you to a level 1 trauma center in 10 minutes. More remote sites might take 20.

 

[crofrog]

The heroes on this trip were two first responders who happened to be guests on the trip.
Lesson learned: when diving, be self-reliant. Do NOT assume that your tour center will be prepared for anything.

Incident occurred at a dive spot returning from Blue Hole. Helicopter was from a Coast Guard station about 30 minutes from the incident. Amazingly, Belize Coast Guard is a military operation; no medical staff were there to help.

It's worth noting that despite rapid helicopter evacuation, it's not a short trip to the ER from HMC. Where I teach most of my SCUBA students at home, an ambulance with sirens could get you to a level 1 trauma center in 10 minutes. More remote sites might take 20.

I always carry and recommend everyone care a TCCC approved tourniquet in their dive gear. Doesn't need to go into the water with you, but having it on the boat is important. If you need a TQ nothing else really works.

 

[rmorgan]

I always carry and recommend everyone care a TCCC approved tourniquet in their dive gear.

Crofrog, is there one or a brand that you recommend?

 

[boulderjohn]

It has been a long time since I dived in that region, and I am not saying that what I observed was involved. On the 3-tank dive starting with the Blue Hole and moving on the Half-Moon Caye, after one of our dives (can't remember which), once everyone was on board, the crew dumped a tub of fish remains off the back of the boat so we could watch a Caribbean reef shark feeding frenzy.

 

[crofrog]

Crofrog, is there one or a brand that you recommend?

I prefer the SOFTT-W tourniquets. The CAT ones are also good. Do not buy them on amazon. Use a reputable vendor like Rescue Essentials, Dark Angel, Redcross.org. There are a lot of counterfeit ones on amazon, and they can break before getting tight enough. Everyone one the trip should have one ideally as well.

 

[rmorgan]

This is an another case of “done with diving but jumped back into water” and got bitten on the surface.

An approximately-identical incident happened in the Bahamas within the past year. Who hasn't heard "The pool is open" after divers are back on a boat, followed by divers down to their bathing suits jumping in. The evidence is clear, to me anyway, that sharks mistake swimmers for fish a lot more than they pose a risk to divers--and then the risk is quite small. My devotion to peeing at depth is validated.

I happened across this paragraph in a recent magazine article:

"When you go to the ocean this summer, you are not going to be eaten by a shark. We kill a hundred million sharks annually. They kill, in unprovoked attacks (those in which the victim was not attempting to feed or touch the shark), between five and ten of us globally. There are a further sixty-odd nonfatal unprovoked attacks reported each year. You are significantly more likely to be bitten by a person in Manhattan than you are to be bitten by a shark anywhere off the North American coast. In the same way that you are not going to win the lottery or become globally famous for your good looks and charm, you are not going to be attacked by a shark. They are not especially attracted to human blood and do not crave human flesh. Sharks—unlike, for instance, crows—never develop vendettas. In comparison, very conservatively, snakes kill eighty thousand people a year, crocodiles a thousand, hippopotamuses five hundred, and lions two hundred. You are more likely to die from constipation, tornadoes, or lawnmowers. Yet no frisson of terror goes through us when we walk past the lawn-care section at Home Depot."​

 

[CT-Rich]

A member of our trip was bit on the hand at “the Aquarium” site near Blue Hole. I wasn’t there, but as I understood it, the ruse sshark was next to him and kicked or hit it (unintentionally) and gave him a nip. He had it bandaged the rest of the week, so I don’t really know how bad it was.

The irony his wife had taken offense at the woman I was with and been fairly nasty (unprovoked). My GF got a degree of satisfaction from the incidence…

Lessons learned? Be spatially aware even around things that can bite you and don’t piss off women from Costa Rica…

 

[johndiver999]

So she was attacked at a shark feeding site. I have to suspect that the feeding altered the normal behavior of the local sharks, but of course, it could just be bad luck.

 

[LI-er]

An approximately-identical incident happened

That's impossible.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

I always carry and recommend everyone care a TCCC approved tourniquet in their dive gear. Doesn't need to go into the water with you, but having it on the boat is important. If you need a TQ nothing else really works.

I have one in the first aid kit I carry to US-based dive sites. I was just debating whether I need it on an upcoming trip, though the diving we'll be doing is shore-based with no boats operating in the vicinity.