Man dies in rare fatal shark attack in Florida
Attackers may be juvenile great white sharks, research scientist says
Feb. 4: A 38-year-old man was killed in a shark attack near Stuart Beach, Fla. NBC’s Natalie Morales reports.
STUART, Florida - A man kite surfing off a Florida beach died Wednesday after being surrounded and attacked by sharks.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said a lifeguard first saw the man in distress at 4:15 p.m. about 500 yards from shore near Stuart, on the Atlantic coast.
The lifeguard paddled out into rough water and found sharks encircling 38-year-old Stephen Howard Schafer.
he lifeguard put Schafer on his rescue board and paddled back to shore. Paramedics took Schafer to a hospital, where he later died.
Victim bitten several times
Daniel Wouters, of Martin County Fire Rescue, told ABC-affiliate news station WPBF that when he was spotted Schafer was “just hanging onto his board… not normal activity for a kite surfer.”
“When (paramedics) got there, they found a number of sharks in the water and they found the victim had been bitten several times,” Wouters said, according to a report on the WPBF’s Web site.
“They were able to maneuver him onto the kite to basically somewhat protect him and bring him on shore.”
Jim Smith, who witnessed the rescue, told WPBF that the rescuers had done all they could. “I can’t emphasize enough — they did their best. The guy just wasn’t moving,” he said.
Young great white sharks suspected
Research scientist Grant Gilmore told The Palm Beach Post it was very unusual for sharks to bite humans off Florida’s east coast at this time of year. He added it should be possible to tell which sharks were responsible from the bite marks.
“It would be nice to have closure on this, to know what it was, especially since the man, tragically, died,” he told the newspaper.
Gilmore said of the four species known to attack humans in the area, great hammerheads, bulls and tigers all prefer warm water and leave or go deep in winter. “The only other species that gathers in abundance out there in the winter are the juvenile great white sharks,” Gilmore told The Palm Peach Post.
‘Nicest person ever’
Friends spoke of their shock at the attack.
“I’ve never heard of multiple sharks in this area surrounding someone and fatally wounding him,” the victim’s childhood friend, Teague Taylor, 36, told The Palm Beach Post.
“He was the nicest person ever.”
Jordan Schwartz told the paper that Schafer was a very experienced kiteboard surfer and “a super nice guy, always mellow.”
There have been about 14 deaths in Florida attributed to sharks, according to records provided to the newspaper by University of Florida Museum of Natural History.
Posted by 
