Cape Cod shark attack had ‘unprecedented’ ferocity

The shark attack that killed a 26-year-old boogie boarder off a Cape Cod beach Saturday was “unprecedented” in its ferocity, one stunned eyewitness said.

“I saw two guys in the water boogie boarding and one got engulfed. The thrashing was unprecedented,” Joe Booth Jr. told the Herald.

“It had to be a 10- to 12foot shark. His buddy frantically got him out. He’s a hero because he knew what was in the water,” Mr. Booth, 33, added. “The amount of volatility was scary. He got nailed. … That shark went in for the kill and then let him go.”

Mr. Booth, who said he came to Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet, Mass., to surf, watched as the shark struck about 30 feet out and “a quarter mile” down from the main part of the beach. He spotted the shark’s fin and the surf churning and instinctively knew it wasn’t good.

“I dialed 911 and then ran down the beach yelling, ‘Shark attack! Shark attack! Get out of the water,’ “he said. “It was peaceful as any day could be. The tide was coming in and the swells were 3- to 4-feet high.”

Fellow swimmers and surfers rushed the victim up the beach as first responders administered CPR, but he was pronounced dead at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. The Cape Cod National Seashore said responders were first called to the scene at 12:15 p.m.

The beach was closed to swimming for the rest of the day.

This was the second shark attack on Cape Cod this year and the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936.