Her Majesty’s Coastguard managed to rescue a fisherman from the the trawler “Govenek of Landram”. The crewmember was bitten by a small shark, sustaining considerable damage on his leg.
The UK Coast Guard praised the actions of the fishing crew after one of their crew was bitten by the shark onboard their vessel. Namely, a man in his early twenties was bitten on the leg by a porbeagle shark after it was hauled onto the vessel “Govenek of Ladram” in one of their fishing nets at around 8.15am on Sunday 13 May.
[smlsubform prepend=”GET THE SAFETY4SEA IN YOUR INBOX!” showname=false emailtxt=”” emailholder=”Enter your email address” showsubmit=true submittxt=”Submit” jsthanks=false thankyou=”Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list”]
After sterilising and dressing the leg wound, the fishing crew alerted HM Coastguard by VHF radio asking for medical assistance. The Coastguard search and rescue helicopter based at Newquay was sent to the 23m vessel, which was positioned 107nm west from Lands End.
Paramedic Winchman, Julian ‘Bungi’ Williams said:
The crew had done a really good job of dressing the wounds before we arrived which meant that we were able to save time getting the casualty to Treliske hospital. We understand that the porbeagle shark was on the deck when the incident happened but as the crew were attempting to put it back in the sea when one of the fishermen was bitten in the process.
Alex Grieg, Senior Maritime Operations Officer for HM Coastguard mentioned that because of the crew’s timely efforts to treat the wounds, HM Coastguard was able to evacuate the crew member promply and get him to hospital.
The fisherman is still in hospital.
