LOS ANGELES (AP) — The victim of a fatal shark attack at a Central California beach cried out to his friend for help as the shark flashed out of the water, bit into his leg and pulled him under in a tide of red blood, the friend said Friday.
Matthew Garcia was two feet away from his friend, 19-year-old Lucas Ransom, when the shark attacked, he said. The whole incident lasted seconds.
“When the shark hit him, he just said, ‘Help me, dude!’ He knew what was going on,” Garcia told the AP. “It was really fast. You just saw a red wave and this water is blue — as blue as it could ever be — and it was just red, the whole wave.”
As huge waves broke over his head, Garcia tried to find his friend in the surf but couldn’t. He decided to get help, but turned around again as he was swimming to shore and saw Ransom’s red bodyboard pop up. Garcia swam to his friend and did chest compressions as he brought him to shore.
Ransom already appeared dead and his leg was mauled, he said.
“He was just floating in the water. I flipped him over on his back and underhooked his arms. I was pressing on his chest and doing rescue breathing in the water,” Garcia said. “He was just kind of lifeless, just dead weight.”
The University of California, Santa Barbara, junior had a severe wound to his left leg and died a short time later at Surf Beach, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. The beach, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, is on the property of Vandenberg Air Force Base but is open to the public.
Sheriff‘s deputies patrolled the coastline to search for Ransom’s missing leg but were only able to recover the boogie board, which had a 1-foot segment on the side bitten off.
Federal and state Fish and Game officials were working to identify the type of shark that attacked Ransom.
The ocean was calm and beautiful before the attack, with large wave sets that the friends had been tracking all week as they moved down the West Coast from Alaska, Garcia said.
The shark, which breached the water on its side, appeared about 18 feet long, Garcia said.
“There was no sign, there was nothing. It was all very fast, very stealth,” said Garcia, 20.
The pair, best friends since they were on the water polo and swim teams together at Perris High School in Riverside County, had joked the night before about the chances they would be attacked by a shark, Garcia said. It was the first time either had been to that particular beach and they planned to surf until about 11 a.m. and then go to class, he said.
“We were just in perfect water, the waves were perfect, great barrels. It was picture-perfect conditions,” he said. “You hear a surfer say, ‘Oh, perfect waves’ — well, the waves do not get any better than they were today.”
Ransom, who was from Romoland in Riverside County, was a junior at UCSB majoring in chemical engineering, but was in the process of changing his major to chemistry because he wanted to be a pharmacist, said his mother, Candace Ransom.
He had been home last weekend but spent most of the time studying for midterm exams, she said.
She last spoke to her son Friday morning, when he told her he was going to surf sets of 8- to 10-foot waves at a beach that was new to him. His mother encouraged him not to go in the water, she told the AP.
Surf websites reported that the waves were 6 to 8 feet high at Surf Beach on Friday. The scientific standard is to measure the height from the back of the wave while some surfers like to measure the face of the wave
“I said, ‘Honey, if they‘re so pretty why don’t you just sit and watch them. You‘re at a place you’ve never been to before,’” Candace Ransom said. “He said, Mom, don’t worry, I‘ll be fine and I’ll call you when I finish up.”
Ransom‘s parents said their son was an avid swimmer and was on his high school’s water polo and swim teams, where he won titles in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle and relays and he ran marathons with his mother. He also worked as a lifeguard at a community swimming pool in Murietta.
It was there, at age 16, that Ransom and two other lifeguards rescued a young boy in 2007 after spotting him floating on the water. He had been certified as a lifeguard just five months before and received an award from the local city council.
“He was a son that every mother would be proud to have as a son,” his mother said. “He had no fear. He did what he loved the most and he couldn’t have left the world in a better place than where he was at.”
Authorities have issued several warnings this year after great white shark sightings up and down the California coast.
There have been nearly 100 shark attacks in California since the 1920s, including a dozen that were fatal, according to the California Department of Fish and Game. But attacks have remained relatively rare even as the population of swimmers, divers and surfers sharing the waters has soared.
The last shark attack on Surf Beach was in 2008, when what was believed to be a great white shark bit a surfer’s board. The surfer was not harmed.
The last fatal attack in California was that same year, when triathlete David Martin, 66, bled to death after a great white shark bit his legs about 150 yards off of a San Diego County beach.
Randy Fry, 50, died from a great white attack in 2004 while diving off the coast of Mendocino, north of San Francisco Bay.
In 2003, a great white shark killed Deborah Franzman, 50, as she swam at Avila Beach, about 30 miles north of Vandenberg.
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Associated Press Writers Daisy Nguyen and John Antczak contributed to this report.
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JohnDoe
Posted on October 24, 2010 at 11:34pmOur great country was founded by and for the citizens of the thirteen colonies. It was designed to insure that a central government was controlled and limited by representatives of those citizens. It was given a limited amount of power, with many checks and balances, to secure the rights and freedoms for its citizens. They were making sure that an American Government would and could not become as Britian had. England enacted laws and taxes on their American subjects, but without allowing the colonies a say in their government. Ignoring the will of the people of America, they bullied and took away what limited rights they had and tried to force them to comply. Sound familiar? Yes, we don’t have to look far across the Atlantic at a despotic leader, we have only to look at the Oval Office in Washington, D. C. and to those whom we had entrusted the liberties of the people and the country. Our representatives, Senate and the House, are there to represent the will of the people. Instead, they have consistently lied to their constituents, both during campaigns and when in office. They have consistently robbed the American people, not only of their money, but also by stealing their liberties, little by little. The incumbent office holders allow themselves to be above the law, they allow themselves to steal by back-room corrupt deals and the like. They ignore the very people who put them in office, they even resort to passing laws, under cover of darkness. They hide laws and corrupt deals in the midst of thousand of pages of laws. This has always been a trick of unethical lawyers. Their mindset is to bog down any opposition by inudating them with mountains of paperwork. Then, they laugh and call the people stupid and ignorant, or worse! No doubt, I could go on and on. Their lack of character, morals and ethics makes them unfit to be employed anywhere, let alone entrusted with the security, freedom, and economic growth of this great country. They have taken your freedom to worship, especially targeting Christianity. They have tried to rewrite the American history, to further their agendas, just like the Moslems continue to do with Israel.
Soon after deciding what sort of Government America was to become, that very question was asked of Benjamin Franklin. In reply Franklin said, “A Republic….if we can keep it”. This is a question that should be upon the lips of all true American patriots. If we can’t or more correctly, if we won’t, then we don’t deserve it. The choice is up to us, the American people, and the answer should be and must be yes we will!
You’re probably asking how do we insure that we will keep this nation a free Republic. Oh, we voted for only those who promised no more taxes, no more spending, etc., etc. Of course they all were proven to be liars again (or should I have said they were just not quite forthcoming or perhaps they were a little disingenuious?). Then we did the “best of the two evils” choice. This was no different than the “Magician’s Choice” trick! We now know that there is no difference between Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to which is telling the truth. Neither has the best interest of America at heart, probably not even in mind! Their goal is simply to acquire power, money, more power and more money while doing and saying anything to remain in office.
So what is the answer? They don’t listen when the people, overwhelmingly, protest and tries to voice their opposition. So the American people need to get their UNDIVIDED attention. How? WE THE PEOPLE, must vote any and all incumbents out of office. It doesn’t matter if they are better than most. If they haven’t been part of the solution, then they are part of the problem. THEY MUST KNOW AND WE MUST LET THEM KNOW THAT GOVERNMENT WILL NO LONGER BE RUN BY ROUGUE LAWYERS AND OPPORTUNISTS, PROGRESSIVES (AKA SOCIALISTS), ETC. THEY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN MODERN-DAY CARPETBAGGERS OR WANNA-BE DICTATORS. THEY MUST BE EDUCATED TO THE FACT THAT THEY WILL BE VOTED OUT AGAIN AND AGAIN, UNTIL THEY LEARN THAT OUR REPRESENTATIVES ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO RUN THEIR OWN VERISON OF CRIME, INC.
AND THOSE THAT ARE ELECTED TO OFFICE, BUT CONTINUE TO DO WHAT IS BEST FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT WILL SOON LEARN THEY WILL HAVE ONLY ONE TERM IN OFFICE.
We, the people, need to lobby our newly elected representatives to enact new laws to insure ALL our freedoms, our security, etc. Enact laws that ethical or criminal behavior of representatives will be prosecuted swiftly and severly, with no possibility of any pardon…not by a state Governor nor by a President! Enact laws or amendments to limit a President to one term only, ensuring that any damage to our country will not be as damaging as is obvious with this Government. Further limit the terms of our Representatives, both in the Senate and the House. Imperative to limit the term of all Supreme Court Justices to no more than an eight year term and make an amendment that the justices can no longer re-interpret the Constitution, but uphold the laws as it was written and intended by the original framers.
So, the bottom line is this: unless the American people get the undivided attention of those in government…when you and your family members are homeless and hungry or at the very least jobless…remember, you have only yourselves to blame.
THE ONLY WAY TO INSURE THAT YOUR FUTURE REPRESENTATIVES WILL LISTEN TO ITS CONSTITUENTS IS VOTE OUT ALL INCUMBENTS!!! FROM THAT POINT ON, EACH REPRESENTATIVE MUST KNOW WE WILL VOTE THEM OUT AGAIN AND AGAIN UNTIL WE HAVE RESPONSIBLE REPRESENTATIVES THAT UNDERSTAND THEY ARE THERE FOR THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
Report Post »Automan
Posted on October 24, 2010 at 5:52pmwell the dems will scream garcia is hanging out with a white man
tragic and does show how short life is, but it is in Gods hands.
we are all Americans
Report Post »Aquatichunter
Posted on October 24, 2010 at 2:18amSo sad. It must have been a terrifying way to die and I can’t even imagine.
Friggen GWs. They should remove them from the “no take” list and put a bounty on them! Eco system my a**
Report Post »Psychosis
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 9:59pmsave the world………..slap a greenie
Report Post »Brooke Lorren
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 7:46pmHow sad.
Report Post »mtnsnow
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 7:02pmI grew up surfing and bodyboarding at Malibu and Zuma Beaches in the late 60‘s into early 70’s.
Report Post »We paddled way out past the kelp, beyond the big swells, and then snorkel-dove 15 feet down to spear Corvina fish or Grouper for food. I saw a 6 foot shark glide by me once. That’s about it.
I can’t believe we played in the waves so many days for many years and never had a shark attack.
hflndrs
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 4:00pmSorry for your loss it is a great tragedy for parents and friends, but take comfort that he was doing what he loved. May we all be as lucky.
Report Post »Jack007
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 4:42pmLucky? no thanks to that kind of luck
Report Post »Jack007
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 11:32amStupid is as Stupid Does
AVENGEROFTHEINNOCENT
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 7:52pmJack, check your heart. Your comment is abominable.
Report Post »micacqu
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 11:02amBe prepared for more Great White attacks along the West coast. Many more people will get attacked and some will die. With the population of seal lions and seals exploding due to enviromental rules and regulations about hunting them, along with Great Whites and other large sharks being on the protected list ( for no other reason than the greenies dont want them harmed ) more people will die while attempting to enjoy the oceans. Animal lives comes before human life in this twisted world now.
Report Post »Jezreel
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 6:05pmYou are correct. Where the shark came after me, there was a seal rookery close around the point. They mistake guys on shortboards for seals.
Report Post »Jezreel
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 10:50amThat is really sad. I was much more lucky. In 1992 at Pacific City in Oregon I had a shark bump me on my board. I seen him swim under before he hit. I said to myself, “I wish that was a dolphin” even though I had never seen a shark before in the ocean up close, I knew it was going to be crappy. When he come around for his 2nd hit, that was when the other surfers believed me because they seen him swimming up behind me. Being on the longboard helped save me and luckily, the shark was not a gigantic one. I got in but for 6 months, I had panic and anxiety attacks wherever I went in. I had to go back to the same place to the same spot to get over it.
Report Post »Star Spangled
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 10:08amMy heart goes out to his family and friends .
Report Post »grandmaof5
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 9:49amThey are living a parent’s worse nightmare. I hope his friend finds peace in that there was nothing humanly possible he could have done to save his friend and God will watch over both of them.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 9:33am“We’re going to need a bigger boat.”
claymoremacm
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 9:24am“Dad is it hard to die?”
Report Post »“No son it is hard to Live”——Hemingway
BGR38
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 8:39amParents, So sorry for your lose, very sad.
Report Post »Stacey
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 8:32amlife hangs on a thin, delicate thread…
Report Post »BJAlexandria
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 8:24amTragic story.
Report Post »claymoremacm
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 7:56ambummer
Report Post »walkwithme1966
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 8:19amI can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose a son – that has got to be the worse thing that could happen to a parent! http://maboulette.wordpress.com
Report Post »snowleopard3200
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 8:49amMay the grace of God, and his Eternal Peace comfort and sustain the family and friends of Randy Fry in the times ahead. May God now keep Mr Fry in his arms until all are reunited again.
Peace I pray to them all in heart and soul.
Report Post »CYCLONE
Posted on October 24, 2010 at 9:01am… just another…. ” Fonzi didn’t jump the shark” moment…
LMAO !!!
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