Corona del Mar State Beach reopened Wednesday morning following a possible shark attack over the weekend, officials said.
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Lowe, director of Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach, said that while shark attacks remain rare, they are expected to increase as populations rise, and he told CBS News that an abundance of fish and warm water caused by El Niño are drawing more great white sharks to the area.
They say the wounds came from a single large shark bite.
As part of training for a half-Iron Man competition scheduled for July 10 in Canada, she was swimming about 1.5 miles off the Newport Beach coast, according to medical center officials, who besides crediting her unbelievable survival to physical fitness pointed to Korcsmaros remaining calm throughout the ordeal.
Lifeguards and officials in the city of Newport Beach were meeting Tuesday to decide whether to reopen the beach.
Maria Korcsmaros was training for an upcoming triathlon by swimming at Corona del Mar State Beach on Sunday when she felt something with her in the water.
Surgeons said Tuesday that Maria Korcsmaros is expected to recover from the bite, which left a large wound that extended from her shoulder down to her pelvis.
“A lot of these sharks spend most of their time literally 100 feet off the beach”, said marine biologist Chris Lowe, who has been tracking the growing shark population off Southern California for more than a decade.
A female swimmer was hospitalized Sunday after receiving multiple bite wounds to her upper body from a suspected great white at Newport Beach.
In 2015, the USA saw a record 98 shark attacks, which included six deaths. Her condition wasn’t immediately available.
It remains unclear whether Korcsmaros will regain full use of her right arm, but you obviously can’t count this lady out.
“This is the sort of thing we expect to see increase”, Lowe said of the attack.
She was swimming in a wetsuit just outside buoys marking a protected swimming area near a boat route.
Surfers, swimmers and others were allowed to return to a mile-long stretch of water from Balboa Pier to a surfing spot known as the Wedge, Newport Beach spokeswoman Tara Finnigan said.
The lifeguards who saw the woman witnessed the last part of the attack and quickly ruled out any kind of boating or watercraft accident, Williams said.
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Along with the warmth of summer comes more beach-goers, more sunburns and, this year, perhaps a greater risk of shark attacks too.
