Three Attacks In One Day At The ‘Shark Bite Capital Of The World’

New Smyrna Beach has more shark incidents per square mile than any other beach in the world. Located in Volusia County in east-central Florida, the stretch has long held the dark title of ‘shark bite capital of the world’ (take a peek around 2:00 in the above clip of Eric Geiselman, who grew up in the area and you’ll see why). Yesterday, in the space of a couple of hours, three separate attacks took place, all involving surfers on the same stretch. The encounters occurred south of the jetty in New Smyrna Beach Safety Ocean Rescue Capt. Tammy Marris told the Daytona Beach News Journal.

The first attack involved a 43-year-old man who was bit on the lower leg area surfing at about 10:40 a.m causing “significant lacerations”. He was taken to hospital with non life threatening injuries. 

Just twenty minutes later a 36-year-old male from Miami was bitten on both hands. Brandon Jurekovic, a 29-year-old New Smyrna Beach surfer, said he saw the man coming to shore holding his hand and screaming. “He was holding his one hand with his other hand and it was obviously blood red,” Jurekovic said. “He was screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Help, help.’”

You’d be screaming too… (Image: Instagam @joan__10)

The last of the attacks occurred at around 1 p.m involving a 16-year-old local boy who bitten on the inner thigh causing minor lacerations, not serious enough to require hospitalisation.

 “You’d be pretty foolish to say that you weren’t scared of it,” Jurekovic said. “I guess surfing’s worth it, to take the risk.”

Joei Lasalle, 22, was also surfing at New Smyrna, shared some insightful words on surfing in the notorious stretch, “I try not to think about it and try to stay on top of the board always.”