Officials describe shark attack: 'It was life before limb'

The swimmer had bite marks in a half circle, teeth marks from her upper right shoulder in the back, down to her pelvis in front and to the other side of her buttocks. Multiple ribs were fractured. She had open chest wounds, and her lung was punctured. She lost at least a liter of blood.

Doctors looked for teeth that might have been left in her body. Triathlete Maria Korcsmaros, a 52-year-old mother of three, had been attacked by a shark.

“It was life before limb,” said Dr. Philip Rooter, director of orthopedic trauma and chairman of orthopedics.

Details emerged Tuesday during a press conference at Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana that gave an inside look at what the swimmer in Sunday’s shark attack off Corona del Mar endured, and how doctors had to swiftly spring into action to treat the trauma patient, who had a touiquet wrapped around her arm to try to cease the flow of blood spilling from her body.

Based on the description of the wound, local shark expert Chris Lowe of the Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab thinks the shark could have been an adult, likely more than 10 feet long.

“I haven’t seen any images, I’m going solely based on their verbal description,” he said. “Based on that, I can tell you that’s probably not a pup.”

Lifeguards on Tuesday moing did a sweep of the coastline, looking down at the water from a helicopter and also searching by boat. After no sharks were seen in the area, lifeguards opened up the area from Balboa Pier to the Wedge about noon.

Corona del Mar remained closed until at least Wednesday moing.

Lifeguards also gave an inside look at what happened during the rescue, the first of its kind in Newport Beach.

Newport Beach Sgt. Mike Ure and officer Andy Matsuyama, acting as the deck hand, were out patrolling the water when they noticed a swimmer about 500 feet from shore. Then, there was a splashing in the water around her.

The Corona resident originally from Canada was out for a mild 1.5-mile swim, nothing much for the long-time triathlete who has an Iron Man under her belt that she eaed in 2008. She was swimming along the buoy line, a place frequented by ocean swimmers and lifeguards who train in the area. It’s also near where sea lions like to hang out near the mouth of the Newport Harbor entrance.

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She felt just one bite. It was bad, but she was able to somehow tread water and raise her arm up in the air, signaling to the lifeguards who happened to be just 30 yards from her that she was in danger.

Within 30 seconds, they were helping her into the boat, said Newport Beach Chief Lifeguard Rob Williams.

“It was very fortunate we had a boat patrolling in the area that witnessed the tail end of the incident,” he said.

The two lifeguards saw nothing around her – no shark, no other animal. They got her into the boat and rushed into the harbor to the Orange County Sheriff Harbor Patrol’s dock.

When she arrived at the hospital, doctors immediately knew that her injuries were consistent with a shark bite. “If you want to draw a picture of a bite, that’s what it would look like,” said Dr. Humberto Sauri, trauma medical director.

It took several hours to stabilize Korcsmaros. She was given a blood transfusion for all the blood loss. Her abdomen wall had to be repaired. They repaired her lungs and made sure she had no injuries to her heart. They searched, but found no teeth left behind from the shark.

The swimmer is now stabilized, and could be hospitalized for the next week. She’s being watched for infection. Surprisingly, doctors said, her nerves all seem to be intact.

But, it’s too early to tell if she’ll have full use of her arm. After wound care and pain management, she’ll begin the rehab process.

Being in top shape because of her triathlete training is helping her heal fast.

“She seemed like a strong lady, she was remarkably strong,” Rooter said.

What’s not known is species of the shark. Lowe said without teeth or witness accounts, it’s hard to tell what species it was. But likely, it was an adult great white.

“It is unusual for them to be in Southe Califoia near our beaches, we just don’t typically see them here,” Lowe said. “We most never have shark attacks along our coast.”

Lowe and his team have been studying a group of about a dozen sharks living off Surfside. Typically, juvenile sharks are bo here and then leave during winter. But they’ve stuck around in the past two years because of warm El Niño waters.

And those sharks are getting bigger. Surfside resident and surfer Jodie Nelson said there’s at least two 9-foot sharks hanging out right in front of her house.

“I definitely don’t like how stressful it is for me to surf, and I don’t like how much bigger the sharks have gotten,” she said.

Williams said that lifeguards couldn’t confirm the shark attack immediately because neither they nor the victim saw what bit her. But from the start, the guards treated the incident like one, posting signs and evacuating the waters.

Williams said lifeguards around the county have had more training in the past year on how to respond to shark sightings, which have spiked in recent years due to warmer El Niño waters. They’ve collaborated with agencies from San Diego to Ventura to come up with a consistent shark-response plan.

“This was the first time we’ve had to put this in place, besides sightings,” Williams said.

He said the agency will be working further with Lowe to lea more about shark behaviors.

“Hopefully, in the coming weeks we can get him on board to prepare better, if that’s possible, and understand why this may have happened here,” Williams said.

He said that the swimmer was near an area frequented by sea lions, but wasn’t doing anything different than many other experienced swimmers.

“The area she was swimming in is frequented by triathletes and ocean swimmers,” he said. “What she was doing was not out of the ordinary, and not against any rules. We have staff that does this frequently. All day long people go out and swim the buoy lines.”