A Tomales resident survived a Great white shark attack while surfing off Dillon Beach at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
Mark Quirt, 21, who lives at Blue Mountain Meditation Center, was rushed by helicopter to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital where he underwent surgery to his left leg. He was released from the hospital Wednesday morning.
Quirt had been surfing with his father and six friends when the shark struck, said firefighter Steve Truttman.
Quirt had incisions up to three inches long from his ankle to his knee, said Truttman, an emergency medical technician who helped treat Quirt. There also was a puncture wound to Quirt's right hand from trying to fend off the attack, he added.
Nonetheless, the young man remained calm, "talking with his father and everyone else," the firefighter added.
Quirt had been straddling his surfboard near rocks north of Lawsons Resort's day beach when the other surfers heard him screaming, "Shark", said resort owner Gabriela Ambrosi. "I used to work as a nurse and ran out to help, but there was a doctor there already," she said.
"One surfer said he saw the leg in the mouth of the shark, and said he had seen the fin."
Sheriff's deputies and Tomales firefighters both arrived at the beach at about 15 minutes later, Truttman said. A surfer in the group was a physician who started an intravenous line, and Quirt "perked up a bit" from the fluids replacing lost blood. (Emergency medical technicians, are prohibited from starting IV's, Truttman noted.)
There have been 69 shark attacks since 1928 along the California coast, said Pete Klimley, marine animal behaviorist with the Bodega Marine Lab. Of those attacks, eight have been fatal. At least nine attacks have occurred just outside the mouth of Tomales Bay.
Truttman, who has been stationed in Tomales for 24 years, noted one swimmer lost "a big hunk out of his buttocks" about six years ago.
White sharks cruise up and down the California coast, foraging for food along the way, said Klimley, who authored and just published a book titled Great White Sharks. Seals and sealions - great whites' primary diet - are common around the Farallon Islands and Bird Rock near Pierce Point.
Klimley said great whites seem to travel in nomadic groups that arrive in an area to feed and then move on after a month or so.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you shouldn't go in [the ocean] the next day. Don't even go in for the next week," Klimley said.