Teen Recovering After Shark Bites Hand, Leg at Texas Beach
A 15-year-old boy bitten by a shark was airlifted after being attacked today.
June 17, 2013 — -- A 15-year-old boy was recovering after he was was attacked by a shark earlier today at Surfside Beach in Texas.
The teen suffered non-threatening lacerations on his hand and leg, first responders told ABC News, and was in stable condition when he was airlifted to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston.
The vicitm's name and his current condition have not been released.
Officials said it was the first shark bite in 25 years on Surfside Beach, a popular swimming spot situated on the Gulf of Mexico.
As the temperatures heat up and more swimmers hit the water, shark sightings have rattled nerves.
A pair of great white shark sightings off the coast of Cape Cod in recent days had swimmers heading for the safety of the beach.
The ominous dorsal fin lurking off Nauset Beach in Orleans, Mass., was enough for officials to temporarily close the popular swim spot on Sunday, just days after another great white shark sighting in the Cape Cod area.
"It was reported to me that our senior lifeguard had spotted a dorsal fin about 150 yards east of the public bathing beach. He estimated it to be 12 to 13 feet in length," Dawson Farber, harbormaster in Orleans, told ABCNews.com.
Lifeguards ordered swimmers out of the water at 10:15 a.m. and cordoned off a quarter mile swath of the beach, Farber said. The waters were reopened to the public an hour later, he said, after there were no additional sightings in the area.
"We had a number of sightings last year, some confirmed, some unconfirmed," Farber said. "We are operating under the assumption these animals are here to stay."
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