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Witnesses describe shark attack

When 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle and her friend ventured more than 100 yards offshore from the Panhandle beach they were visiting Saturday, they entered the sharks' domain.

It was a fatal trespass.

Tim Dicus, a surfer who tried to save the girl after a shark tore the flesh from her thigh, said he heard a scream and saw the friend swimming for shore.

The victim was face down in a bloody circle of water.

"Right next to her was the shark, about to come up and attack her again," said Dicus, 54. As he put the unconscious child on his surfboard, the shark, which appeared to be a bull shark about 8 feet long, went after her hand.

"He just followed us right to the beach," Dicus said. "He was determined to finish lunch. I hate to put it that way, but that was what he was trying to do."

Dicus said he punched the shark on the snout as it tried to attack him. Two other swimmers came with a raft, put the girl on and pulled her to shore.

One of the rescuers said he had heard screams for help and saw Jamie's boogie board - but no rider. He rushed into the water and found the unconscious girl being towed by the surfer.

"He was screaming and hollering," said Chris White, a 23-year-old state health inspector and volunteer firefighter from Carrollton, Ga. "He was yelling "There's a shark, there's a shark."'

They brought Jamie to shore with the shark underfoot.

"I looked down and he was swimming at my feet," White said on Sunday. "We stopped swimming, just went limp vertical in the water, just dangled my legs, tried not to look like any kind of food or anything."

Jamie was in an area not protected by sandbars or lifeguards when she was attacked, said the surfer who hauled her onto his board and headed for shore with the shark trailing them.

"The beach is the beach," said Dicus. "Once you get past that second sandbar, you're in the gulf. And when you're in the gulf, that's where big fish are. You go way down on the food chain."

An autopsy was planned for today, and a shark expert was invited to attend to help determine the type and size of the shark involved, authorities said Sunday.

Jamie was visiting the beach with friends; her family was home in Gonzales, La.

A 20-mile stretch of beach closed Saturday was reopened Sunday, with extra lifeguards and people warily watching the surf.

Residents of a condominium complex next to the beach where the girl was attacked said they saw a shark that looked about 6 feet long Sunday morning.

Although Jamie and her friend, 14-year-old Felicia Venable, were farther from shore than recommended, it is common for boogie-boarders, surfers and people on personal watercraft to go beyond the sandbars that separate the shallow beach area from the open gulf, said Walton County sheriff's Capt. Danny Glidewell.

"Our pilots who fly our helicopters have always reported to us that if you look offshore, there's always a large number of sharks - always has been because that's their natural habitat," he said.

Officials said Saturday that Hurricane Ivan had obliterated the second sandbar in some sections.

A makeshift memorial of painted sand dollars, a boogie board and a magnolia was created on the beach where Jamie was brought to shore. Someone wrote in the sand, "Bless U."

Florida averaged more than 30 shark attacks a year from 2000 to 2003, but there were only 12 attacks off the state's coast last year, according to statistics compiled by the American Elasmobranch Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

George Burgess, curator of the International Shark Attack File at University of Florida, said Sunday that bull sharks are common, aggressive and can be found in shallow water. He said that of 500 documented attacks in Florida, the fatality rate was 2.4 percent.

"Sharks are one of many hazards that one may encounter when entering the sea," he said. "There is no reason to think that this is the beginning of a trend."

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 08:47:06]