As we're going down to the beach, my parents decided to take my sister and I to you know one of those beach shops with trinkets and just funds. And I remember picking out this new bathing suit and was bright, orange and red, and I was so excited to wear it that day. My dad got this kind of dorky, but Cute Fishermans, Fisherman's hat. One of those floppy ones and we're just really excited to go to the beach, This is Avery Olier check when she was nine, she and her parents when a family reunion, one slash four of July weekend in Wrightsville Beach, NC so When we get down there, my family there's about forty of us. You know aunts and uncles and second cousins and people. I've never met before or hadn't seen in a long time, and so we have this big family. Ten. Set up on the beach if I lived in northern California, where the water is very cold

it's almost all year. So this was going to be the first time really swimming in a warm ocean where she could go in past her ankles, and that day the current was really strong. It was running parallel to the beach. So, as you know, our family group was swimming, you would get pushed down the beach further away from the family tent and where people are watching us and so every like thirty minutes, or so somebody my dad or an uncle would call all of us kids out of the water, and we would walk back up the beach and start swimming in front of Our family was around four. It had. This really strange feeling that something was going to happen. Something weird and just really uneasy in and all day had been having a great time and so

later in the day after five o'clock. My cousin, and I there we had draw did further away from the group just because the current had been pulling us further down the shore, and so my dad started signaling to us to get out of the water, and we were so and we couldn't really hear what he was saying. But we you know he had been doing all day are the waters we could just be in front of the family and so my cousin and I and she's ten, and I'm nine we're getting, out of the water. I just get hit yeah hard from behind on my right side, I was only in about waist deep water and I instantly knew that it was a shark. I can't people ask me all the time to describe what it feels like, and the only thing I've been able to say is it feels like exactly like it looks like it would feel, and I

instantly knew. I was being attacked. And I needed to do something, and so The shark comes up again behind me and grab the back of my leg and starts dragging me basically out out further to the ocean, and I just reach around and start punch I'm down with my right hand as hard as I could to try to get it off and my arm slipped into its mouth a little bit right, but you're nine and your punching this you're punching the shark. I was, I was trying to hit it as hard as I absolutely could so I was hitting thank forcing my arm down in behind me to hit to hit behind me to get it off of my leg, I had all of these teeth marks and apes and my arm is bloody up to May for my pinky all the way down to halfway down my forearm and at that

after I was hitting it. It like. I and my dad, ran into the water and got me out, and he actually took his brand new, fisherman's hat off his head and he clamped until my legs to just try to hold everything in 'cause. There is ten minutes and skin and blood everywhere, and he just ran up the beach with me to her family tent and when you put me down and then the line it's like one of those lounge chairs under our our family tent. Then that's when all the lifeguards came over and started. Doing compression wraps on my leg and Oh, my gosh. I will never forget this. Like sixteen year old surfer, lifeguard dude was just like. Does she have all her toes and just remember just oh, my gosh. You know

At that point I hadn't even considered that I might not have my toes. You know I didn't. I couldn't really see my leg at that point. They wrapped it up and they checked, and thankfully I do. I do still have all my toes my poor mother came by she. She had been going to the bathroom at the time, so she missed. She missed in a scene, the actual attack, but just came back to the aftermath and the blood everywhere, and she just with hysterical, just start screen what happened, what happened and we you know, we all knew what happened. It was pretty pretty obvious. What had happened, how big was the actual right. So on my foot, you can clearly see the shape of it. Came from the side, so you can clearly see the shape of a c like a like a bite mark and you can see the teeth and really well on the top and the bottom of my foot an up my leg. Little bit and then

where it grabs the on the back is where it a ripped out, tendons and a lot of skin an ambulance took her to cape fear, hospital, the orthopedic surgeon on call. Was it one slash four of July barbecue. He rushed to the hospital and every was in surgery for almost two hours. Her father says she got more than eighty stitches. They kept her overnight for observation and then Rachel police showed up and asked to look at her wounds to people came and they foot extensively photographed. My shark moons with like rulers and just asked me for a skip, Shannon took nation on you know the temperature of the water that day and the weather in a time and that sort of thing- and I didn't realize that that's how shark attacks are treated, did they

find the offending shark? So why I was on the beach before I had been taking to the hospital they did send lifeguards to go, look to see if they could and the shark, and it was as soon as I was out of the water it was gone. Never found it Avery was attacked in two thousand and two one of six, One hundred sixty one attacks around the world from the year two thousand to two thousand and nine last year. So eighty eight shark attacks, five of which were fatal. That's a very slightly from the average in the preceding five years. Scientist tribute and increase in attacks over the decades to the fact that four of us are getting into the ocean. Water sports have become much more popular and attacks often happen on holiday weekends, when millions of people are so

come in shark attack, a teenage boy recovering in the hospital tonight. Officials are investigating two suspected shark attacks in Melbourne, Beach FL, they believe the show targeted two beachgoers, including a ten year old girl, the first nine one, one call at four hundred and twelve pm Sunday afternoon, an hour and a half later, a second victim two miles down the beach in all of it. Coming just days after another shark attack thirty miles away new. This morning, a popular beach on the big island of Hawaii is closed after a shark attack is the latest in a number of shocking shark attacks across the country. But the thing is, it can be hard to say for sure how often people are to attacked by sharks. In some cases, including Avery's, a shark attack is reported as the fish bite the after Avery was attacked. Her family woke up to read about themselves in the newspaper. The headline was fish attacks child at Beach, Lydon UNDE

stand they'd seen the shark when they got home to California. There was a letter waiting for them from a man, they didn't know the the requested photographs of Avery's wounds and contained a list of questions about what happened what clothes they were wearing, what good colors they might be, what kind of activities were being done by them or others nearby and so forth? and so there's literally hundreds of set questions that we ask of the window and just like in a police investigation. When you get enough information, you can piece the to the thing together and get an accurate appraisal of how and why the attack occured this George Burgess, he sharkbite investigator, who studied thousands of attacks, including studying so called SIRI, killer sharks. For thirty years he headed,

something called the international shark attack file. I'm Phoebe judge. This is criminal. After looking at the photographs of Avery's injuries, George Burgess said an email to the family. He wrote. I am sorry that you were not told the truth about your daughter's injuries. There's absolutely! No doubt The shark was involved, the marks are classic shark injuries. The rights Beach police chief, John Kerry, later said that it was never the town's intention to keep Avery's attack a secret. Any communities local folks, namely the politicians. Don't wanna under the word shark and beach together in one sentence, be Is there worried about LOS of

of a visitors or tourism, and so sometimes the easiest route is to not acknowledge something. Is shark and to blame it on something else? The shock tack file was launched after world war? Two, when there are said to be a lot of shark attacks, on US naval officers in nineteen, forty five, the Us Naval, ship Indianapolis, was sunk by a japanese submarine. Nine hundred men made it into the water alive. They would wait for days for rescue the first night. Sharks went afk, the corpses of sailors had already died and then moved on to the living, though, were attracted to the blood in the water and the sailors movements serve. I first tried to get away from the blood, but they had nowhere to escape by some estimates. One hundred and fifty men were killed by sharks

The Office of Naval research thought they had to do something they hope to develop and were willing to pay for some kind of affective shark repellent, but first they had to collect data. The shark attack file was created with the goal of documenting attacks on a global historical basis, going all the way back. To the 1500s, when George Burgess joined the project in one thousand nine hundred and eighty eight, he renamed it The international shark attack file today there based at the University of Florida just like to play we want to get to the the this, is as quickly as possible because, as as time goes on their their memories of the events or their perceptions of the events, change and and were human. We tend to listen to people around us, and so we

getting to connect the dots ourselves in our heads. Even if it's wrong, and so what we think was an sometimes becomes our evaluation of. We look very carefully at the environmental factors that were were present at the time The attack, the the salinity that water temperature, the tides, the moon phase, that's what kind of bathing suit you are wearing. Do you have tattoos? Were you wearing nail polish? What about ring. Are you menstruating? Will you will you did you urinate on the water things like that, that might have been a tractor to shark. Do you try and keep track of sharks that may be a bit she will attacker. You know it's it's it's highly unusual. At the risk of offending summits, I suspected to be the human equivalent would be how many murders occur in the United States.

And how many of them are done by serial killers and very small for Image of them would be done by serial killers most of the merge So the United States are one off events, but he has been called in to investigate a few about five or six years ago. There were a series of bytes in Red Sea off the coast of of Egypt, and I went over there but during the mists of that to help the egyptian government try to cope with the problem and investigation there suggested that one individual shark was involved in at least three or so of those are four of those incidents, because we actually had photograph pick evidence of the attacking shark, and so we could follow it by the basis of its coloration. Prep pattern. Another marks on his body, so that was an absolute proven one which is no longer speculation, habitual, it

Packers may be rare, but they get a lot of attention. The movie jaws was Billy, have to be loosely inspired by a series of attacks during the summer, one thousand nine hundred and sixteen off the coast of New Jersey. Five people were attacked. Newspaper accounts referred to the shark as a c Wolf, an the jersey, Maneater Pray Woodrow Wilson got involved and agreed to give federal aid to drive away all the ferocious man eating sharks, which have been making pray of bathers eventually, an eight foot, great white shark, captured human remains were found in its stomach when are well most often attacked. We find that in studying shark attacks that the most the pattern we see are reflective.

Of human utilization patterns rather than shark natural behavior, in other words, to get a shark attack. The obvious is that you have to have a shark at a huge together in the water. At the same time, when do we as humans go into the water most of the we go in daylight hours. And even predictably, within daylight hours from certain times to certain time. So we see that most shark attacks occur from about one thousand o'clock in the morning to about four hundred o'clock in the afternoon and We even see that they'll be declines in shark attacks. At certain hours, so between twelve and one or twelve and two in the afternoon, there's a decline in shark attacks, wide? Are the sharks suddenly not hungry at that hour? Now is because we as humans are and

well that's time when we go get our lunch, and so there's less people in the water. So most attacks do occur in daylight hours. Even though for many species of sharks, the preferred time for them to to go feeding is at dusk and dawn and during time hours when they have a competitive advantage over their prey and and and can sense their prey in the darkness. Support for criminal comes from Ziprecruiter and was super critter hiring is simple, fast and smart in cafel tours Seo Dylan Masko it's needed to hire a director of coffee. He went to zip recruiter, posted his job and found the best person for the role in just a few days

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with discount code criminal go to betterhelp dot com, slash criminal. The little questionnaire tell them assess your needs to get match the counselor today, better health, dot com, slash can no matter how scary sharks may seem to humans they're much more likely to be killed by us than the other way round. An estimated hundred million sharks are killed by commercial fishing. Every year we means around eleven thousand die every hour, but George burns just in his colleagues at the international shark attack file understand that people are still really scared and try to reassure us with data on how much the likely we are to be injured by pretty much anything else. Home improvement equipment falling off a bicycle, for instance in New York City in nineteen, eighty seven

more than eight thousand people were bitten by dogs and more than one thousand five hundred people were bitten by other people. Do you have any tips for people I mean we can acknowledge that that the chance of being attacked by a work is like the chance of getting struck by lightning, for I mean it's very rare, but but what are some of the things that people could be could help in the event. Well, it is there there's lots of things we can do to reduce the risk of shark attack. First of all, we can get in standing of where shark attacks tend to be more common. So, for instance, in in the United States and in Florida, We have more attacks in any or other places in the country and in fact, anywhere more in the world,

so new Smyrna Beach is been dubbed the shark attack capital of the world. So, if you're really concerned about your chances of being, Bitten by a shark, you don't go into the water in New Smyrna Beach with a surfboard, so you know that's a matter of choice. Now the attacks are bites that are there continue at the same rate that we've seen in years past, because the surfers which have knowledge of that? This information choose to disregard it because they would rather go surfing and take their fences and go ahead and keep going to doing their thing, so just to pay is on how worried you are as an individual entering the seat. When you consider the letter hundreds of millions of people that enter the the water each year and billion the human hours being spent in the water each year. To think that only six people

go into the water, but don't come back out because of sharks, you get a pretty good feel for what your odds, are as an individual of of dying in the mouth of a shark and shark. It's pretty much much infinitesimal, but that said if that's high. On your mind, Do you want to go to the the YMCA Pool instead? Is it a good idea to try to punch a shark, that's trying to attack you first of all, if you see a shark acting aggressively, you should try to out of the water, if you can get out of the water that solves the problem and end So my general recommendation for anyone just to get out if you're, in a situation that you the capability to do so? In other words, if your scuba diving, you can go down and to the bottom and look for some sort of structure to hide against her behind. Generally speaking, if you

you can do that, sharks will forget about you and move on, but if you're not in Scituate or you can get out of the water or hide, then you stuck in the MID water column, and you had to deal with it and if a shark actually approaches my recommendation is to be aggressive to a shark. They respect side. Is in power, so show them how big you are by giving them a full body view of yourself and certainly I think it's positive to act aggressively towards them. If one comes close, the tip of the snout is sensitive and sharks, and so, if you can give Bob to the the snout most of the times. They'll veer off. It's best to do that. If you scan with an inanimate object. If you got something other than your hand, because keep in mind the nose is located just a little north of the mouths of you, you miss he going to be put in your

and into the mouth of the shark, I do like to say, I you know punch, dark in the face- and I survived- I live- I lived through a shark attack, but I owe I really dislike the idea of the ocean for other people. I just think that sharks are doing what they're supposed to do and people get in the way. I don't think sharks are malicious or intend to attack people. So many people are terrified of sharks. Can you can you understand that? Why are we so terrified of sharks? And we know that shark attacks are actually rather rare? Well, of course, as much as we as brilliant as we are and is culture as we are, and all that we're still animals- and He still probably we have

maybe some genetic hard wiring in there for wanting to look over our shoulder from our caveman days when they were lions and bears and tigers and things that they couldn't could do us harm on our on a regular basis. So there may be a just a little bit of that, still an innocent and of course, I I make the parallel to how we probably all were his kids when we went to bed and the lights went out, and there was that unknown in the in the room, the monster for the bed or in the closet, and we see that monster whenever we enter the sea because we bob at the water surface- and we don't know what's underneath- is George per this retired in November, but he working on shark attacks writing papers using the data he's collected over the years and he still gets caught

calls from police department's all over the world asking for his help with their investigations Krima most produced by Lawrence for Wilson and me, audio mix by Rob, Byers, Matilda or Felino is our intern Julie. Alexander- makes original illustrations for each episode of criminal. You can see them at this is criminal com or on Facebook and twitter at criminal show was recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio. W Unc were proud. Member of radio Topia from a collection of the best podcast around. Special thanks to add Cirque for providing their ad serving platform to radiotopia. I'm Phoebe Judge

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