Teen-age surfing star attacked by shark at Makua

A nationally-ranked,13-year-old amateur surfing star from Princeville lost her left arm from just below the shoulder in a shark attack while surfing off Makua Beach on the North Shore Friday morning.

Bethany Hamilton was in stable condition Friday afternoon at Wilcox Memorial Hospital following surgery and is expected to recover from the attack, according to a press release from the hospital.

Her mother and father, Tom and Cheri Hamilton, and brothers Tim and Noah Hamilton, were with her at the hospital following her surgery.

Her father said that when he spoke to his daughter following surgery she said that in spite of the attack she is looking forward to a promising future.

“She said ‘ Dad, do you think I can become a professional photographer,” he said of one of her first reactions following surgery.

Holt Blanchard, the father of Bethany Hamilton’s best friend, led the effort to get her back to the beach from a surf spot almost a half-mile offshore where he was surfing with his daughter and Hamilton. With the assistance of a paramedic snorkeling at Tunnels, the common name for the surf break off of Makua Beach, he used a surfboard leash as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

Blanchard, who is a North Shore resident and long-time Kaua’i surfer, worked with others to bring Hamilton back to the beach on another board after hers was damaged severely by the shark.

Hamilton’s mother, Cheri, attributes Blanchard’s quick action with saving her daughter’s life.

She was lying on her surfboard in “crystal clear” water about 1,200 feet offshore when the shark attack occurred at about 7:30 a.m., Kaua’i Fire Department Battalion Chief Bob Kaden said during a news conference held at the county’s Emergency Operations Center in Lihu’e.

The attack occurred at a surf break known as West Reef, a peak on the Na Pali side of the Tunnels surf spot.

Bethany’s father, Tom Hamilton told The Garden Island yesterday that her daughter is doing fine. “She’s doing pretty good, though she was pretty traumatized,” he said.

The father said doctors told him that his daughter was in the best shape of any 13-year-old they had ever seen, and that her conditioning from surfing helped her survive the attack.

When the attack occurred, Hamilton was surfing with her best friend, Alana Blanchard, also 13 years of age, and Blanchard’s father, Holt, and brother Byron, a family friend said.

Holt Blanchard was ten feet from Hamilton when he heard her yell out “shark, shark,” Kaden said. “He thought she was fooling around, kidding and looked over and her arm was gone,” Kaden said.

The attack came as a surprise to the surfers, Kaden said. “There was no splashing, the animal didn’t jump out of the water,” he said.

Hamilton initially attempted to paddle back to shore with her right arm, but was put on another board and was brought back to shore by Blanchard and others who applied direct pressure on her injury to halt the bleeding, Kaden said.

After she was brought to shore, firefighters from the Hanalei Fire Station found her “conscious, but in shock, there was very little bleeding,” Kaden said.

The firefighters found her bleeding “was well under control,” thanks to those who had brought her back to shore and stemmed the bleeding, Kaden said.

After additional treatment on the scene by American Medical Response staffers, Hamilton was taken by ambulance to Wilcox Hospital.

Kaden said he didn’t know what type of shark attacked Hamilton, but it appeared to be a large one.

“Our people estimated the bite mark on the board to be about 16 inches long and about 8 inches wide,” Kaden said. The size of the bite suggested the shark ranged from 12 to 15 feet, Kaden said.

An authority on sharks was on the way to the Hanalei police and fire station to inspect the surfboard late Friday afternoon.

In August the young surfer won the explorer women’s division of the National Scholastic Surfing Association’s Open and Explorer event on Kaua’i. In May, she won the women’s division at the Local Motion-Ezekiel Surf Into Summer contest at Ala Moana on O’ahu, beating out older surfers.

Yesterday, county lifeguards using a rescue boat and gas-powered thrill craft began warning people around Makua Beach of the shark attack while also looking for the severed limb. The limb was not recovered, though, Ozaki said.

The last shark attack on Kaua’i occurred in March 2002. Hokuanu Aki, then 17, was attacked by what was believed a tiger shark at Brennecke’s Beach in Po’ipu. He lost his left foot and ankle in the attack.

In 1997, South Shore bodyboarder Michael Coots lost the lower part of his right leg in a shark attack at the Major’s Bay surf break, a beach at the Pacific Missile Range Facility.

In the mid-1980s, North Shore bodyboarder Joe Thompson lost a hand to a shark at an isolated surf break below the Sea Lodge condominiums in Princeville.

Following yesterday’s attack, county lifeguards closed beaches from Ke’e Beach to Wainiha Beach, and another shark, apparently unrelated to the Friday morning attack, was spotted. The Ha’ena Beach Park will be reopened at noon Saturday, after state Department of Land and Natural Resources and Kaua’i officials complete an evaluation of conditions, according to DLNR spokeswoman Debra Ward.

When the other beach areas will be reopened is not known.

The latest attack has drawn national media attention, Tom Hamilton said.

He said the family is being barraged with calls from Katie Couric, 60 Minutes, Hard Copy and other TV news and talk shows.

Hamilton said his family wasn’t yet ready to talk to the national media. “Maybe in a week or so,” he said.

“We’ve had a couple of hundred people coming and going and praying for us,” he said of the family’s experience Friday at the hospital.

“The Hamiltons thank Jesus Christ for preserving Bethany’s life and they ask for everyone’s prayers,” the family said in prepared statement.

Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net