"You can bleed out very quickly from an injury like this."
A recreational surfer who was attacked by a Tiger shark at Honolua Bay, the site of the WSL’s opening tour event for women, has died of his injuries at Maui Memorial Hospital.
The Lahaina man, who was fifty-six, was twenty yards offshore from the old boat ramp when the shark hit, causing catastrophic injuries to his left side lower extremities.
A paramedic on the scene, Maile Calasa, told KITV, “You can bleed out very quickly from an injury like this… My partner and I were watching the surf because we already got canceled from a call that was already at the bay, and we got approached and told from the Jet Skis that a person got bitten so we got down there in a reasonable amount of time. Then, two bystanders in a truck picked us up and took us in to him… and that was huge as far as timing went. It really came down to the whole team of people that helped him, honestly. From the people at the Roxy Pro, to the watermen, the lifeguards, firemen, police, the ER doctor that had blood as soon as we got in the ER at bedside, the surgeon was there… all the nurses, it honestly was a really great team effort. And everyone worked together really, really well.”
The man’s board was recovered with a seventeen-inch piece torn out of it.
In a piece to camera from Oahu on the morning of the attack, the WSL’s CEO Erik Logan called the attack an “incident” adding the WSL’s “thoughts and prayers” were with the “victim” and that the event may be cancelled, which would make it the third WSL event to be called off because of shark attack, following Jeffrey’s Bay in 2015 and Margaret River in 2018.
There have been five fatal attacks in Maui in the last twenty years, 2004, 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2020.
All hits by Tigers.
A week-and-a-half ago, a Californian woman suffered severe trauma injuries to her front torso after a hit while swimming in front of the Mahina Surf condos on Maui’s Lahaina coast.
BeachGrit is the only source calling it a Tiger shark attack….others just go with generic “shark”. Poor guy is still dead but pros should get the facts straight.
Most not in the know figure shark = Great White…you guys in the know..see Tigers there all the time, know the place. Good call
A recreational surfer? I resent that. If the guy was in his fifties he may have been pretty hardcore, probably surfing for over four decades.
Maybe describing him as a lifer or a hardcore or seasoned surfer would have been better.
Recreational sounds more like somebody that golfs.
Considering the worlds top 25 professional surfers were holding a contest at the break, “recreational” is an important distiction for the families of the ladies competing.
The distinction cleared up whether it happened during a contest or whether a contestant was a victim.
Umm, I’ll have to ponder that.
I think what bothers me is, it makes the ‘recreational surfer’–sound like he is less important than the pros.
Well, he’s just a ‘recreational’ surfer, not a real surfer–hes just a recreational surfer.
Globally Controlled shark fishing is required in all key tourism zones.
Context-fish factories catch 100M sharks a year. Drum lines in Australia barely catch a thousand. Environmentalist need to focus on sharks that are caught by the massive fish factory trawlers that operate in all international oceans. Making noise to protect sharks at the beach closest to your keyboard is low hanging fruit, if you you are truely committed to shark protection then the fish factories should be your focus.
Run the remaining girls heats at pipe.
RIP to our fellow surfer
RIP to another surfer killed by an innocent hungry tiger shark. Big mahalo to everyone who attempted to help and condolences to family and friends.
It could have been anybody at any time. We’re no strangers to hungry tiger sharks here and everybody is fair game. Tigers have been long known to troll the freshwater seeps way inside the bay and near the beach at slaughterhouse.
For what it’s worth, he wouldn’t have been paddling out from that nearshore ramp and would’ve instead entered at Caves if the public access had not been blocked by a billionaire’s contest site.
Just sayin’
Crunchy
condolences to the man’s family. tigers are possibly the scariest thing about surfing in Hawaii. while living on Maui in 2000 I showed up to work one morning in Kaanapali and a woman was being treated on the beach in front of the resort for very similar injuries. she’d been skindiving off a catamaran about 100 yards offshore when she was attacked. she lived, but lost a majority of her upper leg muscle. i never paddled from the Honolua boat ramp for that very reason.
Heavy stuff. Hopefully he was lucid enough to be able to say goodbye. Tragedy all around.
Admirable effort by all the rescuers.