Officials are meeting Tuesday to decide whether to reopen Corona Del Mar State Beach, which was closed to swimmers and surfers on Memorial Day after Sunday’s attack.
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The waters were closed in response to what appears to have been a shark attack on Sunday afternoon.
Korcsmaros was training for a half-triathlon over the weekend off the coast of Newport Beach, California, when she “felt something hit her”, said Dr. Phillip Rotter of Orange County Global Medical Center, where she was treated after the attack. “You could see individual marks from individual teeth”. The Corona resident underwent surgery for several hours to fix damage to internal organs and muscles, broken ribs and extensive lacerations to her right arm.
She was gushing blood when rescued by lifeguards 100 yards offshore, and doctors are not sure whether she will ever regain full use of her arm.
However, Chris Lowe, head of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach, said Tuesday that based on the size of her wounds it was likely an adult great white measuring more than 10 feet long.
The Orange County Register reports Korcsmaros had teeth marks from her upper-right shoulder on her back to her pelvis in her front, and also on her buttocks.
The projected increase may be due to a combination of greater shark and human populations and warmer temperatures that send more people into the ocean to swim, George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, told Reuters. Still, he pointed out that such attacks remain rare.
The woman was swimming just outside the buoys marking a protected swimming area, near the area where boats can travel.
A lifeguard boat spotted Korcsmaros, who was swimming in a wetsuit, in distress Sunday, and she was bleeding heavily, city officials said.
Lifeguards who saw her struggling witnessed the last part of the attack and quickly ruled out a boating or watercraft accident, said Rob Williams, chief lifeguard of the Newport Beach Fire Department’s Marine Operations Division. She will be hospitalized for at least another week.
He spoke at a hospital press conference that was interrupted when someone in the audience apparently fainted as doctors described the wounds.
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Lifeguards and city officials have been unable to locate the shark that bit the mother of three but still moved to protect beachgoers.
