Scuba Diver, 27, Critically Injured in Apparent Shark Attack

A 27-year-old scuba diver was critically injured Saturday when he was attacked just off a beach near Carmel by what experts said was probably a great white shark.

Frank Gallo of San Jose suffered a punctured right lung and lacerations to his right shoulder, jaw, neck and forearm in the 10 a.m. attack off Carmel River State Beach, a spokesman for Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula said.

Gallo underwent a four-hour operation by four surgeons beginning at noon, said Bob Miskimon, spokesman for the Monterey hospital.

“He’s doing incredibly well considering what he went through,” said Charles Bancroft, a ranger at Point Lobos State Park who was on duty near the beach and went to the hospital later. “He’s going to have quite a story to tell.”

Bancroft said one of the doctors told him the size of the bite wounds made it likely a great white shark, at least 12 to 15 feet long, was responsible. The ranger said he was aware of only two previous shark attacks in the last five years, both involving great whites.

The beach, known locally as Monastery Beach, was closed after the attack, said Claude Wilkerson, a park aide.

Bancroft said Gallo, a paramedic for the Morgan Hill Fire Department and a competition scuba diver, was diving with two friends and was about 150 yards offshore and 30 feet beneath the surface when the attack occurred. He came to the surface and waved that he was in trouble, then his friends carried him to shore on a diving mattress and called an ambulance, according to the park ranger.

“He was very alert and talking to medical people the whole time,” said Bancroft. “He said he never saw the shark, but managed to brush it off and it didn’t attack him again.”

Miskimon said a tube was inserted into Gallo’s punctured lung to get it functioning.

Great white sharks, also known as “man-eaters,” are considered the most dangerous sharks. The movie “Jaws” was about a great white. Most measure about 20 feet long but they can be as big as 25 feet long.

Scientists do not know why sharks sometimes attack people and at other times leave them alone.