Another close encounter with large shark in the waters off Pacific Grove
By KPIX Staff
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PACIFIC GROVE, California (KPIX) — For the third time this year, there has been a close encounter between someone in the water and a large shark off the shoreline in Pacific Grove.
Fortunately, this time the surfer escaped injury.
Authorities said the latest encounter took place at approximately 5:17 p.m. on Monday. A surfer off Otter Point encountered a shark approximately 100 yards from the shore. The shark grazed and bumped the board, throwing the surfer off of it. The surfer paddled to shore uninjured.
The board was being tested to potentially determine the shark species.
Signs will be posted to notify the area of the shark encounter and the access to the coast will remain open as per California State Park protocols.
Back In August, a Monterey County man and his dog escaped injury after being attacked by a shark while paddleboarding off the coast.
According to police, the man and dog were paddleboarding about 150 yards from the Lovers Point Pier in Pacific Grove around 11:30 a.m. when they encountered the shark.
Police said the shark swam underneath the paddleboard and turned, before biting the board.
The man, identified as a Pacific Grove resident, and dog were thrown off the board. Following the attack, the pair were able to get back on the board and paddle to shore.
In June, a swimmer — 62-year-old Steve Bruemmer — wasn’t quite as fortunate. At 10:35 a.m. on June 22 he was swimming about 150 yards off Lovers Point when a great white shark ripped into his leg.
“I was just gliding through the water looking at the sea grasses and the sea stars,” he said in a Youtube video released as he was recovering at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas in July. “I was about 150 yards from being done near the beach when — just wham! I don’t even know exactly what happened, but, well it turns out I was bit ferociously by a shark right across my thighs and my abdomen.”
“It grabbed me and pulled me up, and then dove me down in the water,” added Bruemmer, a retired IT specialist at Monterey Peninsula College. “Then of course it spit me out. I’m not a seal. It’s looking for a seal. We’re not their food. It spit me out and it was looking at me, right next to me. I thought it could bite me again so I pushed it with my hand and I kicked at it with my foot and it left. I got myself back to the surface and started yelling for help.”
Severely bleeding and yelling for help after the attack, Bruemmer was rescued by paddleboarders and a surfer in the area who got him to the beach and gave him medical aid until first responders arrived.
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