On Sept. 15, a man was attacked in the water off of Newcomb Hollow Beach in Massachusetts. The man, 26-year-old Arthur Medici, was bitten by a shark, taken to a hospital, and pronounced dead. This was the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936, when a young boy was brutally killed by a shark. Officials suspect the aggressor was a great white shark. The beast is believed to have thought the man was a seal or other well-sized marine animal.
“Pretty much every shark bite is an accident,” said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
The probability of getting bitten by a shark is very unlikely. Last year, only 88 people were attacked by sharks globally, and only five of which ended in a fatality.
Experts say that the beach where the attack happened is a rising high-risk area because of the thriving sea life and their interaction with the high amount of tourists. Massachusetts had only a few attacks all through the 1800s and most of the 1900s, and there has been two within a month. Dr. William Lytton, a professor at State University of New York, was attacked in Truro near Longnook Beach last month while surfing.
When asked if he will return to surfing, Lytton said, “I might be a little hesitant, but you know, you fall off the horse, you got to get back on.”
He fought the shark off and was later stabilized in the hospital. It is rare for sharks to hunt so close to shore, especially in shallow waters, and they usually tend to hunt in deeper waters.