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A surfer was killed in a shark attack on Saturday at Manresa State Beach in Santa Cruz County.
The 26-year-old man was attacked around 1:30 p.m. by an unknown shark species about a mile south of the main parking lot, California State Parks said in a statement.
The surfer was pronounced dead at the scene and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has notified his family.
According to the sheriff’s office, the attack occurred within 100 yards of shore near Sand Dollar Beach.
Gabe McKenna, public safety superintendent with California State Parks, said a person flagged down a lifeguard patrolling the area to report the attack.
Terri Tucker lives just off the beach and saw the attack unfold from her window. She was reading a book and looked up to see a large dorsal fin.
“At the time, my thought was my goodness that’s one huge dolphin,” she said.
Then, a flurry of black. Tucker’s phone rang and when she stepped back minutes later, crews surrounded the man on the shore. A couple of other surfers who had been in the water stood nearby, she said.
“It happened so quickly,” she said.
Hours later, Tucker and her husband made their way down to the sand.
“I’m a Christian and I just had to go down there and say a prayer before tomorrow,” Tucker said, before the wind and water erase any signs the surfer was there.
“I hope he gave his mom a hug this morning,” Tucker said, noting that Sunday is Mother’s Day.
She is a mother of five and a grandmother to nine, Tucker said, and aches for her family.
The water a mile south and a mile north of the attack will be closed for five days. It will not reopen until Thursday, May 14.
Officials are urging people to avoid the area. Signs have been posted at beach entrances and access points warning beachgoers about the attack.
Santa Cruz County closed all of its parks and beaches and banned surfing as part of the shelter-in-place order put in place to stem the coronavirus pandemic. But it reopened them and allowed surfing again in mid-April.
Shark attacks are very rare. According to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum, which tracks shark attacks, there were just 64 unprovoked attacks on humans worldwide in 2019. Three occurred in California.
In March, a shark bit the board of a paddle boarder near Capitola, narrowly missing him, according to the sheriff’s office.
Tucker has had her home near the water for 20 years, she said, and has never seen anything like Saturday’s shark attack.
She’s seen sharks take down harbor seals, but never a human life.
Tucker said she takes comfort, though, in the idea that when people die in such a way, they’re “doing what they enjoy most in life.”
A shark attack happened at Sand Dollar Beach in Santa Cruz County today. My friend Eric Mailander has been observing dozens of great white sharks swimming near shore lately and shot these photos. Shark attacks against people are extremely rarehttps://t.co/9yrsS2tRWf @kron4news pic.twitter.com/2Lzw3Kkypj
— Amy Larson (@AmyLarson25) May 9, 2020
The Santa Cruz Sentinel contributed reporting.
