A 51-year-old woman from France is in critical condition after she was bitten by a shark Saturday in Paia Bay, Maui. A group of bystanders had taken the victim to shore, police say, and were treating her wounds until Medic and Fire personnel arrived on the scene.
“We had all the officers come, lifeguards, police department — asking that everyone stay out of the water,” said Cinthia Pacheco, who is a Maui resident. “I think my first reaction was really shocked and I just felt so bad for the person. We actually said a little prayer for her at the moment... It could’ve been one of us.”
The victim of the shark attack was taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center and is currently in critical condition following a “serious bite.” The Maui Police Department is still investigating the attack.
The island was forced to close three of their beaches on the north shore following the attack, including Baldwin Beach Park, Lower Paia Beach Park, and Kuau Bay Beach Park. The beaches reopened on Monday.
According to the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), there have been 116 confirmed shark attacks over a 34 year period, with five of those being fatal. A majority of shark attacks off the coast of Hawaii occur while victims are surfing, while swimming is the second most common activity to draw shark attacks.
Based on DLNR’s graph, a majority of Hawaii’s attacks between 1980 and 2021 occurred in 2013, with 12 attacks and one fatal attack for that year. The graphs provided by Hawaii’s DLNR are for unprovoked shark attacks, meaning “incidents where an attack on a live human by a shark occurs in its natural habitat without human provocation of the shark,” according to the International Shark Attack File.
Saturday’s attack was the third attack in Hawaii but the first in Maui so far this year. The last fatal shark attack was in 2020, when a 56-year-old man was bitten while surfing off the coast of Maui. He initially survived the attack, but passed away after undergoing surgery.
“When a predator is pursuing a meal, oftentimes in the wild, they’ll grab at the first thing that they sense or see that could be a potential meal. In cases of accidental shark bites, often it’s just that case of mistaken identity,” said Michelle Benedict, a Sea Life Park aquarist.
“Sharks and other animals in the ocean know you’re there long before you realize that they are there,” Benedict added. “When sharks bite humans, very rarely do they come back to finish off that meal, because they realized their mistake and that’s not the flavor profile or the size of the item they thought they were getting.”