For the second straight day, swimmers looking to cool off at Long Island beaches had to evacuate the water after a lifeguard may have had a close encounter with a shark in the water.
Early Thursday afternoon, lifeguards by Tobay Beach spotted a shark swimming dozens of yards from shore, and ordered those in the water to come ashore.
People were also ordered out of the water at Robert Moses Beach after a possible sighting in the afternoon. A lifeguard surfing out in the water alerted fellow swimmers after a shark tail bumped his board.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
Fortunately, no bites were reported in either instance, and the evacuations were just precautionary. Swimmers were allowed back into the water by the mid-afternoon.
But the sightings came less than 24 hours after a tourist and a surfer were bitten while in the water on Wednesday. In the first incident, surfer Shawn Donnely suffered a four-inch gash to the leg when he was bitten by what he believed was a sand Tiger shark in the water just east of the main beach at Smith Point County Park, officials said at a briefing.
The 41-year-old Donnely reported the shark knocked him off his board and bit him around 7 a.m., officials said. He then said he punched the shark repeatedly as it kept circling him until a wave helped carry him to the shore and safety, they added.
"It got my left calf and knocked me off my board...when I was falling off my board, I saw the fin and its back," said Donnely. "I just had to take a second. I looked — my arms were there, my legs were there, I was like 'I’m okay' ... I put my board between me and it, it went underneath me, I slapped it and it was gone. I went straight for the beach and rode a wave straight in."
Donnely was taken to a hospital that declined to comment on his condition later in the day. Suffolk's chief lifeguard said that the man was "a little shaken up, as you can imagine," but said that he is expected to recover.
Smith Point Beach was closed to swimming for hours after the attack, with park rangers, lifeguards and even drones searching for more possible sharks, though none were spotted. The beach later reopened around 1:30 p.m.
It's the same beach where a lifeguard was bitten during a training exercise over the July 4th weekend. Donnely said that he's been surfing in the area all his life, and it was the first time he ever saw a shark.
Hours later, Suffolk County officials said a man from Arizona was bitten just after 6 p.m. at Seaview Beach, in the Ocean Beach section of Fire Island. The 49-year-old man was standing in waist-deep water when the shark came from behind and bit him on the left wrist and buttocks, officials said.
The man was able to walk out of the water, and was taken via helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital, and he is expected to survive.
Smith Point, where the earlier incident took place, was one of two Suffolk County beaches that temporarily halted water activities earlier this month over "dangerous marine activity." Cupsogue was the other one that had previously closed.
The lifeguard in that first Smith Point case had been playing the victim role in the training exercise when he was bitten in the chest. He tried to swat the creature, said to be 4 to 5 feet long, away and suffered a hand injury, authorities said. It was the first reported shark attack at Smith Point since the beach opened in 1959, the parks commissioner had said.
That lifeguard, Zack Gallo, returned to work on Thursday for the first time since the incident. His bite wound was evident nearly two weeks after his shark encounter, but he returned with his sense of humor still in tact.
"My fellow guards and I were yelling at the water, 'Who's ready for round two?'" said Gallo.
Beach crews are now using drones and wave runners as part of what Suffolk County officials are calling an enhanced patrol for sharks in an effort to keep swimmers safe.
"I think this was a curious animal and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Gallo said. "We are entering their world and we have to respect the ocean, respect that that’s their world."
Another lifeguard said that warmer waters closer to the shore attract bait fish, which in turn lures the sharks.
The lifeguard needed some stitches but was otherwise said to be OK. Authorities had said someone reported seeing a shark in the area before the attack but it wasn't clear if it was the same shark. Days later, last Thursday, a lifeguard in Fire Island's Ocean Beach community was also attacked by a shark. That person also survived.
And another possible shark bite was reported on the last day of June at Jones Beach. Wednesdays incidents bring the tally of shark bites to four in as many weeks on Long Island.
More Shark Sightings to Come?
More sharks are being spotted in the waters off Long Island, a trend that is likely to continue — and experts say that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Cleaner oceans, warmer water temperatures and a resurgence of bunker fish that sharks feed on are seen as factors, according to experts. Detection, from drones to helicopters, also has improved and reports are easily spread through social media.
“There are a lot more sharks than 10 or 15 years ago,” Christopher Paparo, manager of Stony Brook University’s Marine Sciences Center, told Newsday. “We’re spotting sharks, whales and dolphins here. In the 1960s, we did not have sharks, whales and dolphins.”
Shark attacks in the area have been very rare until recently, with an average of about one reported per 10 years for the last century, Newsday reported. Two lifeguards suffered bites and a third person was bitten in what possibly was a shark attack, within the last two weeks, the newspaper reported.
The United States recorded 47 unprovoked shark bites in 2021, a 42% increase from 33 incidents reported in 2020, according to records kept by the Florida Museum of Natural History.
