Cape Cod Had a Fatal Shark Attack Over the Weekend

Source – A man was bitten by a shark while boogie boarding off a Cape Cod beach on Saturday and died at a hospital, becoming Massachusetts’ first shark-attack fatality in more than 80 years.

The 26-year-old man from Revere, Mass., succumbed to his injuries after the attack off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet at around noon, Wellfleet Police Lt. Michael Hurley said.

Joe Booth, a local fisherman and surfer, said he saw the man and a friend boogie boarding when the attack happened.

He said he saw the man aggressively kick behind him and a flicker of a tail from the water. He realized what had happened when the friend came ashore dragging his injured friend.

“I was that guy on the beach screaming, ‘Shark, shark!’?” Booth said. “It was like right out of that movie ‘Jaws.’ This has turned into Amity Island real quick out here.”

Booth said some on the beach attempted to make a tourniquet as others frantically called 911.

UPDATE -  Authorities identified the victim as Arthur Medici of Revere.

Friends say Medici was born and raised in Brazil and came to the United States two years ago to go to college. They describe the 26-year-old as sweet and humble.

Dear Lord, this is pure, weapons-grade nightmare fuel. Arthur Medici was a real human being with people who cared about him and who just suffered one of the most terrifying deaths imaginable, so I’ll spare you the trite Jaws references. Instead, let’s just take this as a warning about how real the threat from these apex predators is.

I’ll confess I don’t give sharks much thought when I’m at the beach, along the Cape or otherwise. You watch “Shark Week” and they’re always playing down the danger of these creatures, insisting they don’t really like to eat people much. In part because researchers want to stop people from wanting to kill them. And like they’re saying, this is the first fatal attack in Massachusetts since the 1930s, so the threat doesn’t seem real somehow. Even when Discovery Channel is tracking them coming right into shore along the swimming beaches.

But as Arthur Medici found out in the worst possible way, the danger is very, very real. When you go to some of these National Seashore beaches, the waters are lousy with seals. Which is really exciting because seals are cute and playful. But they are also delicious. Big, slow-moving tubes of soft flesh with no natural defense like shells, claws or horns. Basically floating cheeseburgers to the sharks. And as they always remind us on TV, from down below a person on a boogie board is totally seal-shaped. Something you tend to forget all about when you’re screwing around in the feeding grounds of the mostly highly-evolved carnivores in Earth’s history.

So all the condolences possible to the victim, his family, and everyone at the scene who has to be traumatized from such a horrific reminder of the power of nature to kill any of us in an instant. I’m done with going to beach for the rest of 2018. But next summer I’m going to try not to forget just how real the danger is and think twice about going in someplace where there are things that survive by eating you.