The Shadows Attack 11 



was hardly more than a bone and that bore jagged scratches running 

 lengthwise along it— V^an Buskirk saw blood pulsating from a torn artery. 

 There was a rope on the deck beneath him, and he thought of tying a 

 tourniquet with one hand. His own weight and that of his burden com- 

 bined to prevent him from getting the rope, and he almost lost his grip 

 on Fisher as well. Just then, hands reached out from the dock and 

 grabbed Fisher. He was still conscious. Gently, men placed Fisher on a 

 stretcher improvised from planks and bore him to the Matawan railroad, 

 about a quarter of a mile away. Each jolting step up the bank and along 

 the track stabbed him with searing pain. Merciful unconsciousness awaited 

 him, but he seemed to fight it off. There was something he very much 

 wanted to say. 



At the station, they placed him on a baggage car and waited for the 

 next train. A doctor had been found. There was little he could do, other 

 than to retard the flow of blood. Nearly three hours went by until the 

 5:06 train from Long Branch was flagged down. Even on the train, Fisher 

 held on to consciousness. Not until 7:45 that night, as he was wheeled 

 into the operating room at Monmouth Memorial Hospital, did he die. 

 Before he died, he had said what he wanted to say: on the bottom of 

 Matawan Creek, he had reached the body of Lester Stilwell and wrested 

 it from the jaws of the shark. 



While Fisher lay on the baggage car waiting for death and the 5:06, 

 several men went to Asher P. Woolley's store and got dynamite to blow 

 up the shark they believed to be still off Wyckoff Dock. The creek was 

 cleared of boats. But, moments before the charge was to be set off, a 

 motorboat hove into view from down-creek. Jacob R. Lefferts, a Matawan 

 lawyer, was at the wheel. Lying on the bottom of the boat was a boy. 

 His right leg was swathed in bloodied bandages. "A shark got him," 

 Lefferts shouted, as he pulled in to shore. The boy was transferred to a 

 car and speeded to St. Peter's Hospital in New Brunswick. 



At first the boy would not give his name. He was afraid his mother 

 would be angry at him. Soon he was identified as Joseph Dunn, aged 14. 

 He had been swimming with his older brother, Michael, and several 

 other boys off the dock of the New Jersey Clay Company brickyards 

 about a half mile down Matawan Creek, near Keyport. Someone had run 

 to the brickyards and told the boys about the shark. They were all in 

 the water when the warning came, and they swam swiftly to the dock. 

 Joseph Dunn, the youngest, was the last one out of the water. As he 

 started up the ladder, something that felt like a big pair of scissors, he 

 said, grabbed his right leg. ("I felt my leg going down the shark's throat," 

 he said later. "I believe it would have swallowed me.") 



Joseph screamed, and the older boys sprang to the ladder. Joseph 

 kicked the water with his free leg. Michael Dunn and two others began 



