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Nov 02, 2024

Shark bites both surfer's feet at Bathtub Beach in near Stuart Florida

WEST PALM BEACH — The moment Cole Taschman felt the pain in his feet "like the sharpest knife you can imagine," he knew what had happened — and that it wasn’t good. A shark had bitten him on the hand

WEST PALM BEACH — The moment Cole Taschman felt the pain in his feet "like the sharpest knife you can imagine," he knew what had happened — and that it wasn’t good.

A shark had bitten him on the hand while he surfed at the same location, Bathtub Beach in Martin County, more than a decade earlier. This attack was much worse.

Taschman said an eight- or nine-foot bull or tiger shark launched at him while he was surfing with his friends Hunter Roland and Zach Bucolo on the afternoon of Oct. 25, a Friday. His feet were dangling off the back of his board when the shark latched onto both of them at once.

“I got a glimpse of him and screamed, ‘I’m bit!’ ” said Taschman, 28, a fishing charter captain who lives in Stuart and has ridden waves near Bathtub Beach since he was 6 years old.

“(The shark) looked at me as if I was an injured fish. It happened so quickly. There was a big adrenaline rush and a lot of shock.”

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Taschman was about 200 yards out when the shark attacked. He caught a wave and rode to shore with Roland and Bucolo. Once on the sand, Taschman hobbled to his friend’s truck and they loaded him into the back. Ana Peci, Taschman's girlfriend, had been filming the surfers. She said she shook with fear when she learned what happened.

“I looked over at my buddy and said, ‘How bad is it?’ ” He said, ‘Let’s go. Don’t even look,’ ” Taschman said.

Taschman said he almost passed out after he saw his wounds for the first time.

Taschman’s friends turned their surfboard leashes into tourniquets, tying them around his thighs to control the bleeding. Then they drove as fast as they could to Cleveland Clinic Martin North Hospital, a seven-mile ride across the Stuart Causeway from Bathtub Beach.

After an hour there, doctors sent Taschman to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, a Level 1 trauma center that handles multiple shark bite victims each year.

When Tashman was bitten on the hand by a shark over 10 years ago, he needed 12 stitches. This injury required 93.

The only clue Taschman had to be wary that day was that the water off Bathtub Beach was murky, keeping swimmers and surfers from seeing what ocean creatures were nearby. Otherwise, it was a clear, sunny afternoon. The three friends had paddled out from the beach to honor another friend who had recently died.

Taschman said twice is enough for him. Even though he's surfed near Bathtub Beach since elementary school, he said he has decided not to surf there anymore, calling it a “very sharky place."

“The biggest lesson of this is: Don’t surf alone. If no one was on the beach, things could have been a lot different," Taschman said.

He and Bucolo plan to start a surf safety course in Martin County to teach people how to care for themselves if they get hurt while surfing. Several of his friends also have suffered shark bites. One is Marlin Wakeman, who fell into a shiver of 20 sharks in the Bahamas in April.

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Taschman is the sixth shark bite patient that Dr. Robert Borrego, who directs St. Mary's trauma center, has treated this year. He performed two surgeries on Taschman.

Borrego said the shark pulled a large amount of tissue from Taschman’s foot and injured three tendons. He had to “super wash out” the wounds because they were covered in sand and dirt, so much so that debris showed up on X-rays.

Once the trauma center team had stabilized Taschman's bleeding, it concentrated on keeping his wounds from becoming infected, with Borrego prescribing him multiple antibiotics. Sharks swimming close to shore often have high concentrations of bacteria in their mouths, studies have found.

Taschman spent four days at the hospital and is now healing at home. Borrego said he should recover in three to six months, but he should not surf again until after at least six months.

“The wounds were pretty devastating, especially on his right foot,” Borrego said. “But he’s a young, healthy guy. He’s healing beautifully. Everything is coming along perfectly as I suspected.”

Peci is raising funds to help cover Taschman's medical expenses through an online fundraiser. For details, go to www.GoFundMe.com.

Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at [email protected]. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.