By Peter Szekely
(Reuters) – An off-duty lifeguard’s quick thinking may have saved the life of an Oregon surfer who was the victim of a relatively rare shark attack in the state’s chilly waters, a spokesman for the coastal city of Seaside said on Monday.
The off-duty lifeguard quickly treated the surfer, identified only as an adult male, at the scene of the Sunday afternoon attack. He tied a surfboard leash around his leg to stop the bleeding, Seaside spokesman Jon Rahl said.
“It was really a good field tourniquet,” Rahl said by telephone. “It really helped in this situation.”
Seaside police said that when fire and rescue crews arrived, fellow surfers were carrying the shark bite victim to the parking lot. He was then rushed to a trauma unit of local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“The fast response of fellow surfers was instrumental in providing aid to the victim,” police said in a statement.
A woman who identified herself as the victim’s mother said on the Seaside police Facebook page late on Sunday that he was in surgery at a Portland hospital in an effort to save his foot.
Police posted an image of the victim’s surfboard with several bite marks on it.
Shark attacks are relatively rare in Oregon, with only 28 having been reported since 1837, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
They are even more rare in Washington, just 30 miles (48 km) up the coast from Seaside, where only two attacks have been reported in the same period, according to the museum.
A swimmer off Bailey Island in Harpswell, Maine, was killed by a shark on July 27, only the state’s second recorded shark attack, the museum said.
(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
