The Shadows Attack 19 



The calf of his leg was hanging by a few shreds of flesh and muscle. 

 One leg bone was crushed, the other was deeply gouged. By the time 

 he reached a hospital, only a few minutes after he was carried to shore, 

 he had lost an estimated 8 pints of blood. Eight days after he entered 

 the hospital, Brodeur's mangled right leg was amputated at the knee. 

 But he was lucky. He had survived a shark attack. 



The sharks were off the New Jersey coast in the summer of 1962, 

 just as thev were every year. But when, one pleasant Sunday in August, 

 a bather stumbled, bleeding, out of the water at the beach in Manasquan, 

 the resort-minded police stubbornly insisted that "a big fish," not a 

 s k, had done the job. 



The bather, Michael Roman, aged 24, was taken to Point Pleasant 

 (N. J.) Hospital. The physician who stitched up Roman's left hand 

 and left thigh said that an outline of teeth, forming an incomplete oval 

 of lYo by 9% inches, was clearly visible on Roman's leg. Still, the official 

 report persisted: "A big fish." 



On Monday, Kendall H. Lee, City Manager of Asbury Park, a popular 

 resort a few miles north of Manasquan, sent telegrams to newspapers 

 in the area: please be advised our bathing beaches are and have been 



IN FULL operation AND HAVE NOT BEEN SHUT DOWN AT ANY TIME . . . 

 ASBURY PARK IS PROUD OF ITS LONG AND OUTSTANDING SAFETY RECORD. 



Finally, on Tuesday, State Conservation Commissioner H. Mat Adams 

 courageously faced the fact emblazoned on Michael Roman's left thigh. 

 What had attacked Michael Roman, the commissioner solemnly an- 

 nounced, was a shark. It was a very special kind of shark, however, for, 

 Adams pointed out, it had not engaged in a "vicious attack." He said 

 that the shark had not closed its jaws. Rather, Roman had unknowingly 

 put his arm into the shark's mouth up to his elbow. It almost seemed as 

 if Roman was being blamed for attacking the shark! 



What happened to John Brodeur that day in 1960; what happened 

 to Charles Van Sant, to Charles Bruder, to Lester Stilwell, to Stanley 

 Fisher, to Joseph Dunn; what happened down the years to so many— 

 and yet, proportionately, to so few— bathers could happen on any warm 

 day in any year at any beach on the East Coast, West Coast, or Gulf 

 Coast of the continental United States. It could happen, too, on any day 

 or night in any warm or temperate sea on earth, for the shark lives in 

 them all. And there are many rivers and at least one fresh-water lake 

 where it could also happen! 



Rarely does it happen. The chances of being attacked by a shark, it 

 is often said, are about as great as of being struck by lightning. Actually, 

 there is no comparison between the rarity of death by shark bite and 

 the frequency of death by lightning. In 1959, for instance, 183 persons 

 were killed by lightning in the United States— and only 3 were known 



