Shark attacks surfer off coast of Hutchinson Island

[hellwoman]

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_5410953,00.html


Shark attacks surfer off coast of Hutchinson Island

By JEREMY ASHTON
jeremy.ashton@scripps.com
Posted at 6:46 p.m.
March 11, 2007

HUTCHINSON ISLAND — Cries of help from the water and the sight of blood broke up the relative quiet of a Sunday afternoon on Tiger Shores Beach after a surfer was bitten by a shark.

The surfer suffered deep cuts on his right forearm from the attack by an unknown species of shark, witnesses said.


The surfer identified himself to at least one witness as Adam McMichael, a prosecutor with the State Attorney's Office in West Palm Beach.
After the attack, McMicahel was taken to Martin Memorial North hospital, where he was listed in stable condition later in the afternoon.

More than an hour after the incident, surfers and would-be swimmers first arriving at the beach heard about the attack from other people on the unguarded beach and stayed out of the water.

Several witnesses said they heard McMichael screaming for help from the water around 1 p.m.

Kaye Cross, a Massachusetts resident on vacation in Florida, looked in McMichael's direction from her spot on the beach and could see "big, long, deep slices" on his arm and "a trail of blood."

"Nobody could quite process it at first," said Marni Sawyer, Cross' friend from New Hampshire.

As McMichael paddled back to shore, Cross and Sawyer estimated that at least 10 people ran toward the water to help him.

Among that group was Jensen Beach resident Craig Price, who was enjoying a day at the beach with his family when he heard someone yell "Shark!"

One of the other people who rushed to help retrieve a medical kit cleaned McMichael's wound and applied a tourniquet. Price and another member of the group then elevated McMichael's arm to slow the flow of blood, Price said.

During the brief wait for Martin County Fire-Rescue workers to arrive, McMichael, who never lost consciousness, told Price he "just felt a tug" and never saw the shark. McMichael also said he thought he had lost his arm, Price said.

McMichael and his wife, Amber, an attorney based in Coral Springs, are avid surfers who often come to Stuart's beaches on weekends, McMichael told Price.

[hellwoman]

Shark-bitten Palm Beach County prosecutor grateful for rescuers at beach

By Jeremy Ashton
Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers
Posted March 13 2007


Hutchinson Island – Adam McMichael looked down at his mangled right forearm Sunday and wondered if he was going to lose part of the limb a shark had just bitten.

On Monday, McMichael still had both of his arms, and he credits the quick thinking of a group of strangers for making that possible.


"I'm very fortunate, and I owe it to all the guys who helped me," he said in a phone interview from his home in Boynton Beach.

McMichael, 29, a prosecutor with the State Attorney's Office in West Palm Beach, was recovering a day after a brush with a shark he never saw while surfing off Tiger Shores Beach in Stuart.

He underwent two hours of surgery at Martin Memorial Medical Center for the deep cuts he suffered in the attack. Doctors told him he would likely lose some of the nerves on the top of his right hand, but he should recover the full range of motion.

McMichael, an avid surfer for more than 15 years, said he was in the water preparing to push off the ocean floor to surface when the shark swam underneath him and grabbed his arm.

He never got a look at his attacker in the murky water, but he could feel its broad nose and estimated it to be 3 to 4 feet long.

McMichael repeatedly hit the shark to fend it off. When he surfaced, his first thought was to get out of the water as quickly as possible and find his wife, he said.

"I didn't really think the shark would hit me again, but when I looked down in the water, there was blood everywhere," he said.

As he paddled back toward the beach, which had no lifeguards, McMichael saw a wave of people responding to his calls for help.

Another surfer swam out to meet McMichael and guided him back to shore. Two off-duty paramedics elevated his arm and held the main artery to slow his bleeding. Another bystander had a medical kit in his car and dressed the wound before Martin County Fire-Rescue workers arrived at the scene mere minutes after the attack.

"Everyone at the beach helped me out," McMichael said. "It was amazing. I question whether it would be like that anywhere else."

McMichael expects to be apprehensive about surfing again once his wounds heal. But he plans to get back in the water at some point because he said he doesn't want to let the fear get the better of him.

"I was just in the wrong place," he said. "You never think it will happen to you. I don't think it will happen twice, so I've got that going for me."

Jeremy Ashton can be reached at jeremy.ashton@scripps.com.