HANALEI — A 15-year-old surfer said a shark dragged her under water by the leash of her surf board before she freed herself and fled to safety. Kaya Waldman told The Garden Island she was surfing about 11:30 a.m. last
HANALEI — A 15-year-old surfer said a shark dragged her under water by the leash of her surf board before she freed herself and fled to safety.
Kaya Waldman told The Garden Island she was surfing about 11:30 a.m. last Monday beyond the main surf break near Hanalei. It was a big wave day so she was catching some good ones. There were just a few other surfers out.
She was paddling in when she saw something gray in the water. Initially, Waldman believed it was buoy. But when it kept moving toward her, she realized it was a shark.
“It was coming at me so fast I got scared,” she said.
“I started screaming, but there was no one around to hear me,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this thing is coming at me.’”
The leash between her ankle and board got hooked around the shark’s mouth, and she was pulled underwater. She got a good look at the shark when she first fell into the water, and estimated it was longer than her 8-foot, 8-inch board.
The shark dragged her for several seconds until she was able to remove the leash from the shark’s mouth. Then, she surfaced, climbed back on her board and paddled hard until she caught a small wave and headed toward shore.
She guessed the entire incident took about a minute.
“I feel like God saved my life,” she said. “He gave me strength and courage to take off the leash.”
At the beach, she was shaken up as she reported what happened to firefighters and a lifeguard, who made sure she was OK, gave her a hug then checked out the area of the reported attack.
She recovered at home and later, in reviewing pictures, she decided it may have been a tiger shark that came after her.
Her mother, Lisa Lucas, said she was glad to have her daughter home and safe.
“We’re really thankful to God that she’s OK,” she said.
County spokeswoman Sarah Blane said lifeguards responded to a possible distressed swimmer near Hanalei Pier last Monday.
“As the lifeguards and firefighters were talking, a girl had approached them to report that she had an encounter with a shark while she was surfing out past the main surf break,” according to a lifeguard report.
The lifeguards observed the victim and saw she was in good health with no visible or reported injuries and no damages to her board.
Lifeguards then went out to scan the area where she had the encounter, well beyond the swimming area, as is standard protocol. They were unable to locate a shark and given the far location from the swimming area — and with no other reports of a shark sighting that day — they did not close the beach to swimming, Blane said.
A Minnesota man reported what he believed was another shark encounter three days later on Thursday when something bit his hands near the Hanalei Pier while he was paddling in after surfing, too. In this case, lifeguards told swimmers to leave the water and posted shark warning signs before removing the signs Friday morning.
Although lifeguards didn’t see a shark in either case, they did observe puncture wounds and lacerations on the man’s hands that were consistent with a shark bite. The man was also much closer to shore and the main swimming area at the time he was bit. As a safety precaution, the beach was closed to swimming until the next morning.
Waldman has been a surfer since she was 11. She has seen sharks in the waters before, but none that have scared her because they have always stayed kept their distance.
This one didn’t. While it frightened her, Waldman said it won’t stop her from returning to the water. Her faith, she said, keeps her strong.
“If you’re ever getting dragged under by something in life and you can’t get to the sufrace, God will always bring you back up,” she said.
