Shark attacks are a rare occurrence in Fiji, and in 1978, Shark Attack Data said Fiji had recorded less than 70 cases of both lethal and non-lethal instances where sharks had attacked humans.
An article in The Fiji Times on August 23 that year documented the experiences of Laisenia Sau who had an unfortunate encounter with this predators of the sea.
Sau said he intended to carry on diving after recovering from a shark bite which left one of his arms a mangled mass of blood and torn flesh.
The 32-year-old villager of Malake Island, off Rakiraki, was in satisfactory condition at the Lautoka Hospital when he was being interviewed and recovered after doctors stitched the deep gashes on his left forearm.
Sau, who was married with five children, said fishing was his main source of income and he could not afford to give up going to the sea because of the attack.
Describing the attack, he said a 6 feet shark came after a small fish he was holding in his hand.
He and another villager were in the water and four other companions were in a boat about two chains away, waiting for the two to signal their pick up.
Sau’s companion had speared a fish and passed it to him underwater, and the shark, probably attracted by the scent, lunged towards it and in doing so clamped its jaws partly around Sau’s arm.
He dropped the fish and the shark disappeared with it.
“There was a lot of blood, and a lot of pain,” he said.
He was rushed by boat to the nearest road on the mainland, from where a taxi took him to Rakiraki Hospital.
After an emergency treatment they sent him to Lautoka Hospital where his arms was stitched. Sau said he knew there were sharks in the waters where he had been fishing, but this was the first time he had been attacked.
