Medical examiner: Fla. shark attack victim died from blood loss, likely bitten by 1 shark

Shark attack victim died from massive blood loss

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A shark up to 9 feet long likely intended to eat the man it fatally attacked off South Florida, a shark expert said Friday.

Stephen Schafer, 38, was kiteboarding about a quarter-mile offshore in Stuart, 100 miles north of Miami, when he went into the water Wednesday and was surrounded by at least three sharks.

In many cases, a shark attack on a human is simply a case of mistaken identity, a so-called “hit-and-run,” when the animal bites a person instead of its intended target, another fish. But that didn’t seem to be the case with Schafer.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that this was an attempt by a larger-size shark to have a meal,” said George Burgess, who oversees the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida’s Museum of Natural History. “This was more than likely a predatory attack.”

Schafer was pulled from the water by lifeguard Daniel Lund, 46, who was himself a shark bite victim about 25 years ago along the same coast, an attack that left him unable to walk for several months.

Lund paddled for about 20 minutes to reach Schafer and pulled him back to shore. He died a short time later at a hospital. An autopsy revealed he lost more than half of his blood.

Dr. Linda O’Neil, an associate medical examiner in Martin County, said Friday that Schafer was bitten twice, most likely by the same animal.

One bite was on his buttocks, leaving visible teeth marks, and the other a severe tear to his right thigh that gouged to the bone. His right hand was also wounded, but that apparently happened when the shark bit his thigh.

“It looks like the shark hit his leg and he put his hand down there and that became part of the same bite,” O’Neil said.

The thigh wound, which severed branches of the femoral artery, was fatal.

“That was the more significant wound and would have caused death even without that bite to the buttocks,” O’Neil said.

The culprit was likely a bull or a tiger shark, the most likely of the species typically found off South Florida to bite in a predatory attack, Burgess said.

“This one here clearly is an event where the shark knew what it was doing,” Burgess said. If Schafer hadn’t climbed on his kiteboard and been pulled to shore by Lund, the attack likely would have continued.

It was the first deadly shark attack in Florida in five years. The last was in 2005 off the Panhandle, where a 14-year-old Louisiana girl was attacked while swimming about 100 yards off shore. Burgess said that attack was very similar to Wednesday’s attack and was perpetrated by a bull shark.

The International Shark Attack File lists 1,032 documented shark attacks in the U.S. since 1690. Fifty were fatal. Florida leads the world in the number of shark attacks annually.

On The Net:

International Shark Attack File: www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm