A 58-year-old man was bitten in the leg by a shark while surfing off Kewalo Basin Sunday morning, Honolulu Emergency Medical Services said.
EMS said paramedics responded at 7 a.m. and “administered life-saving treatment to a patient who was surfing and suffered shark bite to right leg.”
The surfer was listed in serious condition.
“Honolulu Ocean Safety will continue to patrol the waters off of Kewalo Basin and Ala Moana after this morning’s shark bite. Lifeguards posted signs in the area,” EMS spokesperson Shayne Enright said in an email Sunday.
The incident was the fourth shark incident this year, and the third in which someone was bitten, according to a list kept by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources. Incidents are added to the list after they are investigated and confirmed.
On March 19, an incident occurred at Anaehoomalu on Hawaii island. In that case, two 5-foot Blacktip reef sharks bit a swimmer around 12:30 p.m. about 250 yards from shore, causing lacerations to the back of their left knee and left hand.
Around 11:55 p.m. that night, two cookie-cutter sharks, about 18 to 22 inches long, caused semi-circular puncture wounds to a swimmer’s chest and abdomen. That incident occurred about 12 miles from Papohako Beach.
On Feb. 19, a stand-up paddleboarder encountered a shark at about 11:30 a.m. about one-mile offshore Welakahao Road beach access in Kihei, Maui. In that case, the shark only bit the back of the inflatable stand-up paddleboard.
According to DAR, the last time a shark incident happened at Kewalos was in 2002. In that case, a surfer was bitten on the left foot by an approximately 10-foot tiger shark while duck-diving under wave about four to five feet from the reef’s edge in the harbor channel.
Incidents of sharks biting people in Hawaiian waters are rare, and the risk of injury caused by sharks is small, state officials said.
