On Wednesday, just after 5:00pm, a surfer was attacked by a shark in Northern California, sustaining serious injuries to both legs, requiring hospitalization.<\/p>\n
According to local news<\/a>, the victim, who has been identified as James Eastman, is a 39-year-old local high school teacher. Additionally, immediate action from fellow surfers on the beach following the attack may have saved the Eastman’s life.<\/p>\n The Mendocino Coast News continued: \u201cA witness described the shark as \u2018gigantic,\u2019 visible from shore. Several reported that the shark struck the victim, who witnesses said was a local man multiple times and then circled both him and other surfers.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the attack, Eastman spoke from his hospital bed to Good Morning America<\/a>:<\/p>\n “I could see the shark’s head kind of above the water. I thought of my wife and my kid and I was just like, I cannot die. I can’t die right now.”<\/p>\n No confirmation of the species of shark \u2013 although likely a great white, given their known presence in Northern California \u2013 has been officially determined. And the extent of the injuries, beyond both legs being injured, has been disclosed.<\/p>\n Related: Nathan Florence’s Wild Shark Encounter in Puerto Escondido<\/a><\/p>\n Per the California State Lifeguards, regarding the incident, they wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cA surfer at Big River Beach in Mendocino Headlands State Park suffered a shark bite around 5:18 p.m. yesterday (3\/18). Three off-duty lifeguards assisted the victim out of the water and provided medical aid per their training. The victim was surfing and sustained injuries to both legs. He was taken to a hospital in Fort Bragg.<\/p>\n \u201cThis incident highlights the importance of having ocean lifeguard programs and we thank our lifeguards for their quick, heroic actions. Lifeguards are an important part of the EMS and first-responder network along the rural northern California coastline. Although uncommon, shark bites are one of the many different types of emergencies our lifeguards are trained to respond to and treat.\u201d<\/p>\n The lifeguards added that the surrounding beaches have been closed for 48 hours following the attack, and that they are collecting evidence for an ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n For his part, once he’s recovered, Eastman added:<\/p>\n “I love surfing so much and I would be very sad if I didn’t surf again. As far as everything else is concerned, I was extremely lucky.”<\/p>\n Related: Bull Shark Goes Berserk in Florida Jet Ski Attack (Video)<\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Surfer<\/a> on Mar 20, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Surfer as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday, just after 5:00pm, a surfer was attacked by a shark in Northern California, sustaining serious injuries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[240303,240304,7234,79,201],"class_list":["post-535733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-james-eastman","tag-mendocino-coast-news","tag-northern-california","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}