About 10 minutes after surfer Tommy Civik entered the water in Mendocino County, he was slammed by a force from below so hard that it was “like getting hit by a car.”<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old had gone out on the water around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. It was a clear and crisp day in Gualala, and he was paddling into the depths to reach pristine, unbroken waves when he was struck by the shark. The attack happened less than a month after an open-water swimmer was killed by a shark<\/a> in Monterey Bay.<\/p>\n Civik is originally from Point Arena, about 20 minutes north, a small city where coastal and marine life are a familiar part of the landscape. Surfing has been part of his routine for years, and like any surfer, he said, he had passing thoughts about sharks as he swam.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking that this would be the day it would happen,\u201d Civik said.<\/p>\n But the sudden attack sent him flying.<\/p>\n \u201cMy board snapped in half on impact. My friend watching said that I flew in the air,\u201d Civik said. \u201cI\u2019m still piecing together what happened. \u2026The whole thing was so jarring, I was just trying to get away.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Civik never saw the shark, he said he immediately knew what it was from the force of the slam.<\/p>\n His friend Marco Guerrero, who witnessed the incident from a nearby sandbar, described the scene to Civik as \u201cviolent,\u201d with the shark\u2019s tail \u201cwhipping\u201d high above the water.<\/p>\n Read more: Swimmer believed to be victim of shark is found dead, a shark-deterrent band around her ankle<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI just remember Tommy saying, \u2018I\u2019ll meet you out there,\u2019 and suiting up. I was looking out at the waves when I saw the thrashing,\u201d Guerrero said. \u201cI said, \u2018Oh that\u2019s a shark attack,\u2019 thinking it was attacking a seal. I didn\u2019t realize it was Tommy.\u201d<\/p>\n With only the tail of his board left and far out from shore, Civik said he \u201cjust put [his] head down and swam, fast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know where the shark was, so I just focused on getting away. After a minute, I realized that if the shark [had] wanted to bite me again, it would\u2019ve,\u201d Civik said. \u201cIt all happened so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Guerrero described the shark as \u201cbig, around 6 feet long,\u201d with a white underbelly.<\/p>\n At 8:45 a.m., the South Coast Fire Protection District received a \u201ccall of distress,\u201d said Chief Jason Warner. A bystander on a nearby cliff saw the attack and called 911.<\/p>\n The Coast Life Support District and the fire department, one of the few local departments with a water rescue team, according to Warner, responded to the scene with Jet Skis, prepared to pull Civik from the water.<\/p>\n But once they got there, Civik was already out, standing on land with a torn wet suit and a broken board.<\/p>\n \u201cWe gave each other a big hug when he got out of the water,\u201d Guerrero said. \u201cHe said, \u2018Don\u2019t go in!\u2019 The slam was really the worst part.\u201d<\/p>\n Civik didn\u2019t initially see the wounds until his friend pointed them out.<\/p>\n \u201cI was unbelievably lucky. My board took all the impact, and the teeth just grazed me,\u201d Civik said. \u201cI had quite a bit of adrenaline, and since I could walk, I drove myself to the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Warner, first responders found that Civik had lacerations on his legs, but he made the decision to take himself to the nearby hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 20 years working at coastal fire departments, I had yet to respond to a shark attack. They\u2019re very infrequent,\u201d Warner said. \u201cLuckily, he had minor injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the paramedics, a surfer too, couldn\u2019t believe that a shark attacked him. We have three generations of surfers among us, and not one time was there a shark attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Civik handed over his wet suit and board to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, where officials will test DNA to confirm what kind of shark it was.<\/p>\n Peter Tira, a spokesperson for the agency, said officials suspected it was a great white shark, a species known to live in the area.<\/p>\n Research shows<\/a> that great white sharks have a hunting tactic called breaching, which involves them rising quickly to hit surface-dwelling prey, such as seals, to shock them before biting them.<\/p>\n On Dec. 21, Erica Fox, a well-known figure in the local open-water swimming community, was killed as she swam in Monterey Bay<\/a>. Her body was recovered six days later. It was the second shark encounter at that location in three years.<\/p>\n But Tira stressed that shark attacks on humans remain very uncommon in Northern California. Officials recommend that surfers \u201cexercise caution\u201d and avoid surfing alone.<\/p>\n As for Civik, the experience hasn’t soured him on surfing.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I would surf again,” he said. “If it\u2019s already unlikely to get attacked by a shark once, how could it happen twice? I don’t think this will stop me.\u201d<\/p>\n