An “aggressive” shark killed a woman who disappeared while snorkeling with her husband in Maui, Hawaiian authorities said Monday.
A 60-year old Washington woman disappeared Dec. 8 when she and her husband were snorkeling about 50 yards from shore at Keawakapu Point, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) said, according to the New York Post. While snorkeling, the couple encountered an “aggressive shark,” prompting the woman’s husband to pop his head out of the water in an attempt to locate his wife, the New York Post reported.
The woman’s husband mentioned encountering an “aggressive” shark roughly 50 -yards off-shore. He also said that as the shark began to circle him he began looking for his wife but assumed that she might have dove toward the ocean floor while snorkeling.https://t.co/lGzjQNFQqp
— KOMO News (@komonews) December 19, 2022
As he continued to search for his wife, he spotted the shark in the distance with “something red around the shark’s gills,” the New York Post reported. His account was corroborated by a witness on the beach who claimed he tried to warn the couple “when he saw the shark’s large mouth continuing to feed on something in the middle of the red cloud in the water,” according to the outlet.
Once the victim’s husband returned to shore, he reported his wife missing and first responders began a search of the area, according to Hawaii’s DLNR. U.S. Coast Guard and other officials continued searching for the woman until nightfall and resumed their search the next day, only to call off the search when a 10-12 foot shark, believed to be a Tiger shark, was spotted in the area that afternoon, Hawaii’s DLNR said, according to the New York Post. (RELATED: 68-Year Old Man Fights Off Shark With Knife After Suffering ‘Brutal’ Bite To His Torso: Police)
A snorkel and a piece of a bathing suit washed ashore, according to Fox News, but Dan Dennison, a spokesman for Hawaii’s DLNR, could not confirm that the items found were the victim’s.