PONCE INLET, Fla. — 2 people suffered from shark bites at the same beach in Volusia County on Labor Day, according to officials.
A report from FOX 35 says the two visitors were both in their 30s and were on the beach at Ponce Inlet, which is part of a coastal region of Florida that also includes New Smyrna Beach. The region is known as the shark bite capital of the world due to the sheer number of shark bites that happen annually.
The first victim, a 30-year-old surfer, refused patient care after a shark bit him in his left hand. Officials say he instead opted to drive himself to the hospital. Officials deemed his injury not to be life-threatening.
The second victim, a 37-year-old woman from Apopka, got bitten on the right foot while she was swimming in the shallows. She told officials that she didn't see the shark that bit her. Emergency medical teams tended to her quickly, and she was ultimately transported to the hospital. Her injury was also determined to be non-life-threatening.
According to reporting from the Daytona Beach News-Journal, sharks tend to feed at Ponce Inlet and can easily mistake swimmers and surfers for the baitfish they eat. Most of the shark bites there are non-lethal.
Volusia County Beach Safety officials cited in the News-Journal's reporting suggest that visitors to New Smyrna swim in front of lifeguard towers: both so that lifeguards can more easily rescue swimmers from rip currents, which they consider a bigger safety threat than the sharks, and so that lifeguards can call people out of the water if they see large groups of baitfish or birds diving into the water. Those are typically signs that sharks are close by.
