MIAMI - A 19-year-old Austrian tourist has been attacked by a shark along Florida's Gulf Coast, the third victim in less than a week of the ferocious predators that roam the waters around the Florida peninsula.
Armin Trojer from Baden, Austria, was bitten on the right ankle by the shark while swimming
in chest-deep waters off Boca Grande, 230km northwest of Miami, said Lee County Sheriff's Deputy Angelo Vaughn.
Vaughn said the extent of Trojer's injuries was not clear but "it's more than just a scrape."
The Austrian was flown by helicopter to a hospital and was undergoing surgery. Vaughn said he was pulled out of the water by rescuers after the attack.
Craig Hutto, a 16-year-old boy fishing in waist-deep water off Cape San Blas in the Florida Panhandle, was bitten by a shark on Monday. His leg had to be amputated.
Last Saturday, 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, Louisiana, was killed by a shark near Destin, about 100km north of Monday's attack. Officials believe she was bitten by a 1.8-metre bull shark, an aggressive shark species that can survive in both salt and freshwater.
Florida recorded about 33 shark attacks a year from 2000 to 2003. The number dipped to 12 last year, possibly because a series of strong hurricanes kept swimmers, surfers and divers out of the water and kept sharks away from the coastline.
Fatal shark attacks are rare. There were seven reported deaths from 61 unprovoked shark attacks recorded worldwide last year, according to the International Shark Attack File, a group at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Worldwide, there were four fatal attacks in 2003, three in 2002 and four in 2001, the group's statistics showed.
- REUTERS
