Video emerges showing shark attack off Manhattan Beach Pier

A video has emerged showing a shark attack that left a swimmer injured near the Manhattan Beach Pier.

One video, posted on by LoudLabs News on YouTube, shows the shark “jumping right on top” of the swimmer, as one of the people heard on the recording describes it. Onlookers scream at other swimmers to get out of the water and direct rescuers to the injured swimmer.

A second video, on KTLA, shows what may have been the same shark a few days earlier.

In Saturday morning’s attack, a man described as a long-distance swimmer between 35 and 40 years of age suffered a single bite wound on the right side of his rib cage. He was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and was said to be in stable condition. His name has not been released.

Witnesses told authorities that the shark had gotten caught on a baited hook that a fisherman had thrown into the water from the edge of the pier. They said the shark had been on the hook for about 45 minutes and was thrashing around in the water when it bit the swimmer about 9:30 a.m.

“He was trying to get off the line,” said Capt. Tracy Lizotte, a Los Angeles County lifeguard at the beach. “He was agitated and was probably biting everything in his way and then the swimmer swam right into the shark’s line.”

Lizotte said it’s not uncommon for sharks to swim in waters past the pier’s edge.

“That’s where they live,” Lizotte said. “It’s their home.”

He stressed that sharks usually avoid people and said this case was unusual because the animal had become agitated.

“This was an accident,” Lizotte said.

Aram Ozen, who was surfing near the end of the pier when the attack occurred, said some people thought the victim was having trouble swimming. Then Ozen heard people screaming, “White, white!” referring to a great white shark.

“It was a scary scream,” Ozen said. “It was kind of freaky. There was a lot of people screaming back to shore.”

Ozen said other surfers started paddling out to help the victim back to shore as officials cleared everyone out of the water.

“I saw blood on his right rib,” he said. “He was a little bit in shock.”

For most of the day, lifeguards kept people off the pier and out of the water along a two-mile stretch of beach as authorities coaxed the shark into deeper waters.