46 Shark Against Man 



persons nearby. On May 19th, 1960, four teen-agers were clustered 

 around an inflated inner tube about 150 yards oflr Hidden Beach, 6 miles 

 southeast of Santa Cruz, California. They were members of a high school 

 sophomore class who had earned a day oflr as a bonus for selling the 

 largest number of school yearbooks. 



Playing around the tube were Nick Buak, aged 16; Larry Cronin, 15; 

 Tessie Lettunich, 15; and Suzanne Theriot, 16. "Larry and Suzanne were 

 swimming around the tube, and Nick and I were in it," Tessie later 

 reported. "Suzanne screamed that something was on her leg. Larry 

 grabbed her arm and Nick told me to pull my feet up onto the tube. I 

 saw the blood, and the fin sticking out of the water. We started kicking, 

 and Larry, holding Suzanne, clung to the tube." 



At this point, another swimmer, Edward Cassel, aged 17, reached 

 the tube and helped get Suzanne ashore. Her left leg, which was later 

 amputated, was mangled. But the shark had not touched any of her 

 companions. (Similarly, none of the rescuers of Barry Wilson was touched 

 by the lurking shark that followed them as they got him to shore.) 



A macabre tale of a shark's persistence in singling out a victim came 

 out of World War IL An Esso tanker was fired upon and then torpedoed 

 by a German U-boat. Two members of a Navy gun crew aboard the 

 tanker were shot down at their battle stations when the U-boat shelled 

 the tanker. After the vessel was torpedoed and the order given to abandon 

 ship, a heroic seaman, Charles D. Richardson, dragged the two wounded 

 men to the railing and dropped them over the side. Then he dived in 

 after them. 



Richardson got one man on his back and told the other to cling to 

 his neck. With his double burden, Richardson began struggling through 

 the oil-coated water toward a lifeboat. He heard the man on his back 

 moan and felt him begin to slip. Richardson turned to see a shark pulling 

 at the man on his back. 



While the second wounded man still clung to his neck, Richardson 

 pulled a knife and slashed at the shark, trying to drive it away. But the 

 shark kept gnawing at the man on Richardson's back, as if determined 

 on him alone for its victim. Ignoring Richardson and the second wounded 

 man, the shark kept on tugging. The shark got its man. Richardson did 

 save the other man, and they reached outstretched hands in the lifeboat. 

 The valiant seaman later received the Maritime Commission's Merchant 

 Marine Distinguished Service Medal for his heroism. 



In several Australian shark-attack cases, the strange pattern has been 

 the same— a single victim selected from several bathers; an attack on 

 him alone; his rescuers untouched. 



The theory has naturally arisen that the rescuers of an attack victim 

 are somehow themselves immune from attack. But this theory has been 



