Lyn Jutronich, 50, was taking her normal swim Nov. 4 off the coast of Del Mar in San Diego County when she encountered a shark.
A lifeguard spotted the woman and her friend just after 10 a.m.
Jutronich, a long-time swimmer, has been swimming the same one mile stretch two to three times a week all summer. The swim takes 30 to 40 minutes to complete based on water conditions.
The water was rough which forced Jutronich and her swim partner David farther out to sea.
“Simply because the waves were breaking farther than they normally do on that day, we went near the buoy, the half mile buoy or the quarter mile buoy yet, but it’s farther than I’m comfortable being,” she said from her hospital bed.
As they neared the end of their swim, the two took a break and floated in the water.
That’s when the suspected juvenile white shark rammed into Jutronich, grabbing her inner thigh on the right leg. “It was terrifying, it was a split second and I didn’t have time to react.
“As soon as the shark hit me, in my head I knew. I saw the jaws and after that it let me go. It shook one time kind of like a dog does and it let me go, and I knew. I just said to David, I’ve been bit we have to get in to shore.”
The two started waving at lifeguards as they began calmly swimming to shore.
Chief Lifeguard Jon Eldelbrok, who saw the two swimmers before the incident, realized their strokes had changed as David started waving his arms for help.
“They saw us waving and thought it was a cramp or they didn’t realize the severity,” Jutronich said.
At this point the two were few hundred yards from the beach, but outside the surf zone, slowly making their way to the beach. Lifeguards helped them back to shore and said both swimmers maintained their composure and commented how diligent David was of Jutronich.
Once on the beach lifeguards examined the wound and confirmed no arteries had been severed.
“When that happened, I felt a sense of huge relief,” she added.
She was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla where doctors treated multiple lacerations.
The biggest wound is about 8 cm (about 3.15 in) long, others 2 1/2 cm (about 0.79 in) wide and 2 to 3 cm (about 1.18 in) deep.
Despite her serious wounds, Jutronich plans on getting back in the water again but will take it one day at a time.
Eldelbrok said the incident is the first shark bite at Del Mar, and only the fourth to occur in the county in the last 15 years.
In October, Jared Trainor was bitten while surfing off Centerville Beach south of Eureka in northern California. The shark left a nearly 19-inch wound in his thigh which had to be stapled shut.
In June, Stephen Bruemmer suffered multiple injuries from a shark to his arm, leg, and torso while swimming off Pacific Grove.
All locations have been marked on the 2022 Shark Attack Map.
