North shore woman recalls bloody encounter with shark

North Shore surfer Marjorie Mariano was discharged from the hospital Monday after several surgeries saved her mutilated leg following a New Year’s Eve shark attack.

The 54-year-old Haleiwa resident, originally from Brazil, tearfully described the brutal incident when she encountered a more than 12-foot-long shark amid a tranquil ocean and full moon around dusk at her regular surf spot near Laniakea Beach. She had already surfed at the same spot in the morning and went back that evening by herself for a 30-minute session.

“The full moon was shining on us. The ocean was so beautiful and calm. It was a beautiful last day of 2017,” she said.

That’s when she felt the presence of something big approaching and take hold of her leg. She said she turned around and looked the shark in the eye when intuition kicked in.

She flipped her board sideways and started kicking, preventing the shark from fully chomping down and taking her limb. Mariano said she paddled as hard as she could before other surfers came to her aid, tying up her leg with a leash and helping her to shore.

“That intuition to react, it saved my leg. I’m alive. It’s been a very intense, surreal week for the start of 2018,” she said at a press conference at The Queen’s Medical Center. “It’s been overwhelming.”

The shark bit the underside of Mariano’s board and her left leg from her upper thigh to the back of her knee. Fortunately, the shark bite was like a sharp knife and left a clean cut, so doctors were able to sew her nerves back together and repair her ACL and hamstring.

Mariano cried as she recalled the moments right before the attack when she was thinking about her best friend, Telma Boinville, who was brutally murdered during a robbery last month.

“I’m coming from very heavy trauma. She was my surf partner, my life partner, the person I would lay down at the beach with for hours. I’m coming from that to my shark attack,” Mariano said.

Mariano said she is determined to fully recover, though it is a long road ahead with physical therapy to get back to normal.

“The doctor said, ‘You may not have 100 percent rehab on your foot,’ but I guess it’s because they don’t know me. I’m going to overcome this incident, and I am going to make it happen,” said Mariano, who for the most part refused to take narcotics to alleviate the pain. “All my surf buddies … they’re all wishing to see me in the lineup again. I have faith I’m going to turn this page one day. I’m very determined. I’m a survivor. I’m hoping that I’m going to be an inspiration to a lot of people. Life goes on.”