LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- For anyone headed to the beach in Florida this summer, first responders and wildlife experts in the area are warning people to keep an eye out for sharks.

The warning came after a weekend in which three people were bitten, one of who had to have part of her arm amputated. The attacks off beaches in the Florida Panhandle led authorities to temporarily close several beaches to swimmers Friday. Beaches were reopened Saturday, with flags warning of high hazards.

"It is rare, exceedingly rare, to have three victims in one day," Walton County Sheriff Mike Adkinson said.

In Walton County, the sheriff's office, fire department and the state's wildlife agency were working together to patrol the water with boats and the shore with vehicles, the South Walton Fire District said in an update Saturday. Both of Friday's attacks happened in Walton County, an area that encompasses from Miramar Beach and Seaside to Seacrest and Rosemary Beach.

Red and purple flags were being used Saturday to warn swimmers of the dangers.

"Purple Flags indicate the presence of dangerous marine life and single red flags indicate high hazard conditions," the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post on Saturday.

Small fish are traveling in schools near the shore this time of year, which might have been a contributing factor in the attacks, the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said.

The 30A area of the Florida coast is a popular vacation destination for Kentuckians. The Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport has nonstop flights to nine Florida airports on five different airlines. Depending on the day, there are as many as 11 departures from Louisville to Florida cities.

Over the weekend, Kayla Least, Macey Potts and Cassidy Ratterman — all from Louisville — were there for a friend's bachelorette party about 40 miles west of the site of the attacks.

"The locals made it seem like it was a kind of a freak thing and it hasn't happened in 15 years," Least said Monday. "Even our captain was like this was really weird that this even happened."

The first attack happened Friday afternoon when a woman was bitten by a shark near WaterSound Beach, the Walton County Sheriff's Office said. She had critical injuries on her midsection and arm, and part of her arm had to be amputated, South Walton Fire Chief Ryan Crawford said at a news briefing. She was flown to a trauma center.

Less than two hours later, firefighters responded to another beach about four miles east of the first attack "following multiple reports of a teenager injured by a shark," the sheriff’s office said.

Two teenage girls were in waist-deep water with a group of friends when they were attacked, the South Walton Fire District said. The two teenagers are from Mountain Brook, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, Mountain Brook City Manager Sam Gaston told the news site Al.com. 

The time of the attacks — in the middle of the afternoon — was also an anomaly, Adkinson said. Sheriff's officials often warn people to be aware of sharks early in the morning and at dusk, their typical feeding times, he noted.

University of Louisville professor Matt Kolmann has spent time researching sharks in Florida and agreed Friday's attacks are a rarity.

"Usually, most folks, when they do get attacked or bitten, it's at dawn and dusk," he said Monday. "That's when sharks ... seem to be out the most."

Kolmann said sharks are not seeking out humans.

"Most shark attacks are not malicious," he said. "Sharks didn't really evolve to eat us, right? And so I think, most of the time, it's a case of like mistaken identity."

On Saturday, Walton County sheriff's deputies patrolling the waters in a boat spotted a 14-foot hammerhead shark near Santa Rosa Beach, which they said is not unusual. Sheriff's officials say they don't know what type of shark attacked the swimmers on Friday.

Shark attacks are rare, according to experts. There were 69 unprovoked bites last year worldwide, and 10 of those were fatal, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File. That was higher than the recent average of six deaths per year.

Related Stories:

Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.