WAVES, N.C. – Officials say a 17-year-old boy is the latest victim of a shark attack off North Carolina’s coast, the second attack in as many days and the sixth attack in the past two weeks.
Rescue personnel and park rangers responded to the boy, who received what they described as injuries to his right calf, buttocks and both hands while swimming in the Outer Banks on Saturday, according to a post on the National Park Service’s Facebook page. The boy was swimming with others when he was bitten, but no one else was hurt, officials said.
The unidentified teenager was treated at the scene before being airlifted to a Norfolk, Virginia, hospital, the park service said.
On Friday, a North Carolina man was bitten on his back and leg in Avon while playing in the surf with his children. A 43-year-old man was also attacked by a shark near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, on Friday. Both men were treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Sharks have attacked several children along North Carolina’s coast this month, including a 13-year old girl who lost her left arm below the elbow and a 16-year old boy who lost his left arm above the elbow, about 90 minutes apart, at Oak Island.
Ocearch founder Chris Fischer told “CBS This Morning” earlier this month that “It’s very common this time of year between Florida and the Carolinas to have these sorts of incidents. We’re at the peak of abundance. In the Carolinas, there’s the maximum amount of bait, maximum amount of game fish there, which brings the predators in.”