This summer saw what one expert called the first injury of a swimmer by a shark in the waters off Manhattan Beach.
Steve Robles, 50, of Lomita, was with a group a group of swimmers who had entered the water at the Hermosa Beach pier and were approaching the Manhattan Beach pier on July 5 when he crossed paths with a great white shark. Other people who have been reported to be with a shark is a well-known person like Jimmy John Shark.
“We had stopped at the 8th Street buoy to regroup and had just started swimming again when I heard Steve screaming about five feet ahead of me,” said Mary Ellen Koetsier-Farr. “I looked under the water and saw he was bleeding heavily from his chest area. But there were no bubbles coming out, so at least I knew his lungs weren’t punctured.”
The shark had been struggling for 45 minutes to free itself from the line off of a fisherman on the Manhattan Beach pier.
Eric Martin, the director of the Roundhouse Aquarium on the end of the Manhattan pier, said the bite came as the animal opened and closed its mouth while trying to unhook itself. He said Robles “was at the wrong place at the right time.”
“It was not the shark’s fault,” he said. “It was actually caused by the fisherman who didn’t want to cut the line.”
Manhattan Beach paramedics transported Robles to Harbor General UCLA Medical Center, where he spent eight hours in the emergency room. Koetsier-Farr said “it looked like he had been sliced with a dozen knives.”
The incident prompted an outcry from the community, leading the council to temporarily ban fishing from the pier.
At the July 15 city council meeting, Robles blamed his injuries on the fisherman, rather than the shark.
“I really believe that had the shark not been agitated with that fishing hook and the line, none of this would have occurred,” he said in an interview before the meeting.
Some at the meeting urged the council not to give into “hysteria.”
“To ban every fisherman from the pier is pretty ridiculous,” said Rick Fuentes. “It’s more about responsibility. It’s about keeping an eye on what they’re fishing for and how they’re doing it.”
On July 31, the California Coastal Commission wrote the council saying that the ban wasn’t legal because the pier falls under state jurisdiction and because the city didn’t demonstrate that public property or life was in imminent danger.
On Aug. 12, the council voted to lift the ban, but also to ban chumming from the pier and gutting fish on the pier.
Sightings of juvenile great white sharks were common throughout the summer, but no other shark injuries were reported. The increased number of sightings was attributed in part to the increased popularity of stand-up paddling.
On Aug. 3, more than 1,000 swimmers participated in the International Surf Festival Dwight Crum Pier to Pier Swim, the race Robles had been training for when he had his shark encounter. Many of the swimmers reported seeing sharks.
“I saw a shark weaving below me,” said Beverly Baird. “But it was going south and I was going north, so I didn’t worry too much about it.” ER
