U.S.

Feeding On The Shark Attack

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 10, 2001 / 10:35 AM EDT / CBS

The family of a man who lost part of his leg in a shark attack while swimming at a Bahamian resort are consulting attorney Johnnie Cochran to discuss a possible suit against the hotel.

Meanwhile, hundreds of maritime sites around in the Bahamas, Florida, and around the world, are capitalizing on the thrill of feeding sharks, and opponents say the recent attack is further evidence that shark-feeding tourist dives should be regulated or banned.

Krishna Thompson was attacked by the shark last Saturday, during what was supposed to be a quick early morning swim in the waters off the Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort in Freeport, Grand Bahama, where the couple were celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary.

At a news conference this week, Thompson's wife, Ave Maria, said lifeguards were reluctant to help her husband as he fought off the shark.

She said the Wall Street banker from Central Islip, N.Y., used his bare hands to pound the shark and got free, reaching the shore on his own and then passing out from shock and blood loss.

But hotel officials say two lifeguards saw the shark's fin in the water and jumped in after Thompson, who was between 15 and 18 feet from shore.

As they neared Thompson, the lifeguards saw blood in the water and used a hand-to-hand rescue method to pull him out. Once ashore, the lifeguards applied towels and a tourniquet to stop the bleeding in Thompson's leg, a statement from the resort said earlier this week.

Other accounts say a doctor who was jogging nearby applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

The "interactive marine experience" industry, which claims feeding dives protect sharks by dispelling the myth of the terrifying marine predator, says opponents are using random shark attacks as a weapon to push for a Florida ban on shark dives.

The attack last Saturday on Krishna Thompson, whose left leg was so badly mangled as he swam off a Freeport resort that surgeons had to cut it off, happened in an area that bills itself as the "Shark Diving Capital of the World."

The Miami Herald reported for Friday's editions that the family has been talking with Cochran about a possible lawsuit.

Cochran has not obtained a retainer from the family but will announce next week whether he will take the case, according Cochran's spokeswoman, Rachel Noerdlinger.

Thompson is recovering at Jackson Memorial Regional Hospital. Doctors removed his leg just above the knee after he was flown to Miami from a Bahamas hospital.

For as little as $35, Bahamian operators will take scuba divers to sites where "chain-mail" clad tour leaders hand-feed sharks while tourist divers watch and snap pictures.

"Divers get a once in a lifetime thrill and the sharks get an easy snack," trumpets a Web site for Bahamas shark diving, Xanadu Undersea Adventures.

Bob Dimond, founder of the Deerfield Beach, Florida-based Marine Safety Group and a leader of a drive to ban for-profit feeding in Florida, said the dives act as a classic "Pavlovian" training for sharks, dimming their natural fear of humans.

"When you teach them to associate humans with food, you are greatly increasing the risk of attacks on humans," he said.

The attack on Thompson happened within a couple of miles of prominent Bahamas shark-feeding sites, Dimond said, raising the question of whether commercial operators are increasing the risk to swimmers by attracting sharks to the area.

Bob Harris, a Florida attorney who represents the Global Interactive Marine Experience Council and the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, said there was no evidence to support the notion that commercial shark feeding increased the risk of attacks on humans.

"In the 30-year history of shark feeding, there has never been a single reported attack as far away as a mile from a feeding site," he said. "Sharks don't go to a feeding site and feed and then go looking for people."