A swimmer who was bitten by a shark off the coast of Cornwall has described the attack as “very scary”.
The victim was on an organized trip from Penzance to snorkel with blue sharks – one of several species to visit the UK during the summer months – when the ‘freak event’ happened last Thursday.
The individual is believed to have suffered a leg injury, according to HM Coastguard, who met them at Penzance Harbor to help them get to paramedics.
In a statement released by the tour company, Blue Shark Snorkel Trips quoted the victim as saying: “However the trip ended, it was amazing to see such majestic creatures in the wild and I do not for one second want this strange event to tarnish the reputation of an already persecuted species .”
They added: “What was a very scary incident was made much easier by the kindness and calmness of the people around me.
“Thank you to the trip team for getting me back to shore quickly and carefully and making me feel as safe as possible. We all take these risks when we enter a predator’s habitat, and we can never fully predict the reactions of a wild animal.
The company said it “immediately adopted our emergency response plan, providing first aid to the individual involved”, adding that the individual was “extricated from the boat” to receive further treatment ashore following advice and assessment from the Coast Guard security.
“We have tried to understand why this happened and are continuing to speak with shark experts,” the travel company wrote on Facebook.
Shark attacks are indeed very rare in British waters, with only around 10 occurring since 1800, according to a database.
It records just one fatal incident involving a swimmer near Hornsea exactly a century ago, after the first recorded attack in 1785.
The most recent shark encounter involving any danger to the person involved is believed to have occurred in 2017 off the coast of South Devon near Bantam, where a surfer is reported to have walked away with only a bruised leg and cuts on his arm from “where [he] hit him”.
Paul Cox, managing director of the charity Shark Trust, told The Independent at the time: “I personally wouldn’t describe it as an attack because it feels out of context. This is an interesting and somewhat unusual incident involving one of the 30 species of sharks we are lucky enough to have in British seas.’
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