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Plenty of Americans celebrated the Fourth of July with a day at the beach, but a few people who headed to the shore on South Padre Island in Texas saw their day take a harrowing turn courtesy of a single shark that was linked to four encounters that sent two people to the hospital.
By now, I feel like most people know the odds of being at the receiving end of a shark attack are incredibly low in the grand scheme of things. In 2023, a grand total of 69 people around the globe were subjected to an “unprovoked” bite, with 10 of those instances involving a fatality.
You probably won’t be shocked to learn Florida leads the pack when it comes to the states with the most shark attacks on an annual basis (it was responsible for 16 of the 36 cases that were recorded in America in 2023), and while Texas didn’t register on that list last year, it will be firmly represented when the tally for 2024 is compiled thanks to what transpired on Independence Day.
According to ABC News, a single shark is believed to be responsible for three attacks that led to injuries in addition to one relatively harmless interaction with a beachgoer on the 34-mile barrier island situated in the Gulf of Mexico at the southern tip of Texas.
The situation began to unfold at 11 A.M. when first responders were called to assist a man who’d suffered a “severe” bite to the leg before he was transported to a local hospital. That preceded another attack involving a woman who was also rushed to the same facility after the same shark tore into her left calf.
Authorities say a man who helped one of those victims out of the water received stitches for a minor bite after kicking the shark (which was described as approximately six feet long). It also brushed against a fourth person before it swam into open waters as officials monitored its movement with the assistance of drones.
Based on the coloring and the tail, it appears a bull shark was responsible for the string of attacks, although that detail has not been confirmed.