Liz Dunn, 28, suffered minor injuries after being bitten on the left calf while surfing at a spot called Leftovers, about one mile south of Waimea Bay on Oahu, Hawaii, around 11.40am on Thursday 23 March.
Done had caught a wave, which she described as one of the best in her life, a long ride which took her into the channel. The channel was muddy and murky because of run-off from recent heavy rains.
While paddling back out she felt a bump on her board. “I thought it was a rock or a turtle,” she said. Then she felt the bite on her calf.
"The bite was almost not the scariest part - it was seeing the fin," a jagged dorsal fin a foot and a half wide at its base, Dunn told media. "I knew it was a big, serious shark."
Dunn was visiting Hawaii from Vancouver, Canada.
Hawaii’s Star Bulletin quoted National Marine Fisheries Service biologist John Naughton as saying: "People are absolutely crazy to be surfing in these conditions."
"I'm almost surprised it hasn't happened earlier with all the debris and mud in the water.”
The gray shark kept circling her, with the large fin above, then below the water, and Dunn feared the worst.
"It felt like it took a taster bite," she said.
The bite left three puncture wounds near her shin. The largest was 2 1/2 inches wide and went to the bone.
Two local men with whom she was surfing heard her screams and rushed to her aid.
They pulled her to shore on her 7-foot board and later washed her wounds at a private home with soap and water, and wrapped it in paper towels and blue packing tape.
Dunn thinks her wet suit protected her leg and might have prevented a serious bite.
Her boyfriend, Chris Smith, drove her to Kahuku Hospital, where she received a tetanus shot and intravenous antibiotics and her leg was bandaged.
Sources:
Star Bulletin
