A 25-year-old surfer believed to have been bitten by a great white shark in waters near Eureka, Calif., is expected to live after undergoing surgery at a local hospital, the Eureka Time-Standard reports.
KIEM identified the victim as Scott Stevens, who was described by peers as an experienced surfer. Video shot by the station showed Stevens' surfboard with a 14-inch bite taken out of it.
The board was recovered following the attack, which occurred around noon Tuesday off the North Jetty at Eureka's Bunker Surf Spot, CNN reports.
"He had four or five serious gashes from his nipple down to his hip," Blake Barr, a surfer who came to Stevens' aid, told NBC Eureka. "We... hopped on top of him and basically used our body weight to hold everything in."
"It punctured all the way through. There were guts and meat hanging," Jason Gabriel, another witness, told the Eureka Times-Standard. Gabriel said that Stevens appeared to be in shock following the attack.
Stevens told a sheriff's deputy that he had been bitten by a shark, according to the newspaper. He was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, and underwent surgery on Tuesday evening.
This is the second shark attack reported off the California coast this month. Earlier in October, Javier Solorio Jr., a 39-year-old surfer, died following injuries sustained in a great white shark attack near Santa Barbara.
Western Australia has reported several gruesome shark attacks this year. One surfer was reportedly bitten in half.
Shark sightings and attacks on Cape Cod, Mass., alarmed beachgoers this summer. There, a shark tailing a kayaker was captured on video. Footage of the amazing moment went viral, although no actual attack occurred in this case.
While shark attacks are widely covered in the media, marine life activists point out that humans pose a far greater risk to sharks than sharks do to humans. Shark populations face danger from finning, bycatch and fishing pressure, according to advocacy group Oceana.