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German tourist on British boat killed in shark attack off Spain
The woman’s leg was torn off by the shark and she died on the way to a Canary Islands hospital
A 30-year-old German holidaymaker, who was sailing on a British-flagged yacht some 514 kilometres off the coast of the Canary Islands, has died after being attacked by a shark. The woman, whose leg was bitten off, died while being airlifted to the hospital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The horrifying incident took place shortly before 4pm on Tuesday September 17 when the British pleasure boat Dalliance Chichester was idling in the waters around 180 kilometres west of the city of Dakhla in the Western Sahara, a territory occupied by Morocco. Following the attack, the crew of the catamaran requested urgent help from Spain’s Salvamento Marítimo, which shares international rescue responsibilities in that area with the Moroccan Navy.
As Rabat had no emergency resources in the area, Spain sent out a widespread alert and a nearby ship was able to offer some first aid supplies to the crew. When a helicopter from the Search and Rescue Service (SAR) of the Air Force arrived from Gran Canaria, the woman had already lost her leg.
She was taken on board the helicopter at 8.05pm, where she went into cardiorespiratory arrest and was sadly dead before she arrived at the Doctor Negrín Hospital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
According to maritime navigators, the British catamaran the victim was travelling on had left the Las Palmas port on September 14 heading south.
Sharks are a common sight off the coast of the Spanish islands but no incidents have ever been recorded in the area where Monday’s fatal attack occurred. In fact, according to the Florida Institute of Natural History, since records began there is only evidence of six incidents in the Canary Islands, none of which were fatal. Until now.
Image: Freepik
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