A 34-year-old Kailua-Kona woman who was gripped in a struggle with a tiger shark off North Kohala feels fortunate to have escaped without deadly injury.
That McKenzie Clark made it out of the encounter with a 12- to 15-foot tiger shark with damage only to fingers and a hand is likely because of a companion wrestling the shark and beating it with his fist.
“It was very terrifying but I am very grateful all went the way it did,” Clark said after her release from the hospital Friday evening.
Clark was paddling her surfboard in murky waters off Halaula Lighthouse at Keawaeli Bay on Friday morning when the shark made its first pass. Brian Wargo, her companion, heard Clark screaming and looked behind him.
The shark appeared to miss on its first lunge, Wargo said, and Clark and her board were on top of the shark’s back, being carried out to sea.
“I can see the dorsal fin sticking out of the water probably 3 feet high,” said Wargo. “It’s tail was pushing the water really hard. I started paddling out to her, but the shark was carrying her away from me out to sea. Then he dropped her.”
The next moments unfolded in slow motion for Wargo, who is captain of Bite Me Sportfishing in Kailua-Kona. The shark returned for a second pass, this time clamping onto Clark’s hand and board. Clark ripped her hand out of the shark’s mouth and rolled off the board. The shark kept its teeth in the board and swam seaward again, towing Clark by her leash. Wargo paddled as hard as he could and got to the shark just as it dropped the board and turned back for Clark.
“There is no question what its intent was,” Wargo said. “I’m a fisherman and I’ve dealt with big animals … Its intent was to eat my friend right in front of me and I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Wargo grabbed the dorsal fin with both hands and the shark pulled him off the board. Wargo yelled for Clark to get on her board.
“I got my right hand free and I started hitting it as hard as I could between the gills and the dorsal fin,” Wargo said. “It felt like I was going to break my hand. About the sixth hit, I felt the shark shudder and turn away from her.”
Clark and Wargo paddled for shore, where they wrapped Clark’s hand in a wetsuit top, climbed a cliff to the road and drove to North Hawaii Community Hospital in Waimea.
Clark received 20 stitches to her left hand, middle finger and ring finger and was released around 3 p.m. The ring finger was scraped to the bone and will require a skin graft.
The shark left a bite in the board measuring 15 inches by 9 inches, Wargo said.
The Department of Land and Natural Resources has closed the beach and posted shark warning signs.
“To get attacked by a shark this size and only get a couple of finger bitten, I feel really lucky,” Clark said.