A German woman swimming from a British-flagged catamaran has died after a shark-bite severed one of her legs. The incident occurred in international waters off the north-west African coast yesterday afternoon (17 September).
The woman, thought to have been in her 30s, is understood to have been crewing on the Dalliance Chichester. According to Spanish press reports, the 17m pleasure craft had sailed south from Gran Canaria three days earlier.
At the time of the incident it was more than 500km south-south-west of the island and 180km off the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara, a disputed territory south-west of Morocco.
An emergency call requesting the evacuation of the injured crew-member was sent from the vessel just before 4pm and picked up by the Spanish Maritime Safety & Rescue Agency.
It in turn notified nearby merchant ships, one of which was able to provide medical supplies. The Moroccan Coast Guard was also alerted, but declined to carry out the requested transfer to the Canary Islands because of lack of available resources.
Accordingly the Spanish Air Force was called in, and deployed a search and rescue helicopter with a support plane to bring the woman back to Gran Canaria.
They reached the boat just after 8pm but the victim went into cardiac arrest during the airlift, and was declared dead on arrival at the Doctor Negrin Hospital just after 11pm.
Great white channel
Only six shark incidents have been recorded around the Canary Islands themselves since records began in the 16th century – four off Gran Canaria, one off Tenerife and the other unknown. There had been no recorded instances in the area in which the incident occurred.
Ekrem Parmaksiz, a shark photo-journalist and Divernet correspondent, knows the sea closer to the Canary Islands well and says that sharks found there, such as silkies, “never get aggressive“.
“This attack took place offshore to the south, very far from the Canary Islands. It is the Atlantic Ocean’s eastern shoreline that provides channel passage for great white sharks towards the Mediterranean Sea, so it is highly likely that this might have been a great white.”
The incident is now the subject of a judicial investigation on Gran Canaria.
Also on Divernet: ROGUE SHARKS? WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN THE RED SEA?, ‘ABNORMAL’ SHARK BEHAVIOUR CLOSES RED SEA SITES, DEATHS BLAMED ON FEMALE TIGER SHARK, HURGHADA COAST CLOSED AFTER SHARK FATALITY
