Hawaiian Shark Attack Victim Aunty Lulu, has shared her shark encounter story.
Lulu Bagnol, who is known as Aunty Lulu, was out for her normal swim September 7 around 2:30 p.m. when she was bitten by a shark.
The 51-year-old woman had been swimming at Makaha Beach for 16 years, and the day seemed like any other.
“I’m out there about 100 yards or so, then I did my turnaround, I did my swimming, I turned around where the surfers are,” she told Hawaii News Now.
That’s when the suspected tiger shark bit. “I just felt this huge, huge tackle, like a football tackle,” she explained.
At first she thought it might have been a boat that hit her.
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“I was just so ready to fight and get out of the water, and when I looked up to get up and try to figure out who it was. I just saw flesh, all over flesh, my blood, my shoulder was coming off, my arm was barely there. I go ‘oh crap, you’re not a boat, you’re a shark.’ ”
Thankfully, a surfer by the name of G-No Opfer heard her screams and came to the rescue.
***Graphic shark bite photo below***
“He came to me on a short board. I said, thank you so much, I just got hit by a mano.” (Mano is the Hawaiian word for shark.)
Opfer tried to help her onto his short surfboard, but Aunty Lulu was unable to do that, so Opfer called to his friend Danny Boro who had a long surfboard.
With bite marks on her forearm and shoulder, Aunty Lulu was having difficulty breathing. Boro and Opfer were able to help her onto the longboard and signal lifeguards.
“So what was going through my mind was, I was kind of freaked out myself as I was paddling her in because everything was happening so fast,” Boro said. “And I didn’t know how much blood she lost and so I was just, as much as I could, get her on my board and get her to the other rescue board.”
Lifeguards met the group in the water and transferred her to a rescue board. Another rescuer got behind the rescue board and helped push Lulu to shore.
She was transported to the hospital and is currently recovering from the incident. Aunty Lulu does not blame the shark, and plans on getting back in the water as soon as she is healed.
“It’s not the shark’s fault, it’s not the shark’s fault,” she said. “It’s their home, I am a guest in their home, they’ve been doing what they’ve been doing for centuries feeding. It is absolutely, positively, not their fault.”
There have been a total of 69 shark attack bites in 2016. Six of which were fatal; 33 were reported in the US, with 23 occurring in Florida. Thirteen have occurred in Australia, three of which were fatal.
All locations have been marked on the 2016 shark attack bites tracking map.
They are nothing more than mindless murders. If a human were to go on a killing spree, they would be hunted and dealt with,probably with fatal results,but with these beasts,excuses are made for the murderous behavior.