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Fatal shark attack at Vandenberg Beach

October 22, 2010

The victim of a fatal shark attack cried out for help as a shark bit into his leg and then drug him under water, about a 100 yards from Surf Beach at Vandenberg Air Force Base, on Friday morning. [MSNBC]

Lucas Ransom, a 19-year-old University of California, Santa Barbara student, and his friend Matthew Garcia were boogie boarding in the surf line when the shark attacked Ransom without warning.

“When the shark hit him, he just said, ‘Help me, dude!’ He knew what was going on,” Garcia told the AP.

Lucas Ransom

Garcia spotted Ransom’s red body board, which was attached to Ransom by a cord, and swam to his friend. He did chest compressions as he brought him to shore.

“He was just floating in the water. I flipped him over on his back and underhooked his arms. I was pressing on his chest and doing rescue breathing in the water,” Garcia said. “He was just kind of lifeless, just dead weight.”

Ransom died a short time later at Surf Beach. The UCSB student is from Romoland in Riverside County.

All three beaches at Vandenberg Air Force Base have been shut down for 72 hours.


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There is no way in our present condition to contain this shark.

A couple of decades ago when the coast guards were patrolling our coast it was possible to cursory seal a general area quickly by lure-baiting and hooking the shark if done in quickly.

A shark travels faster very very fast and could be in San Francisco or the deep ocean in a very short time.

Divers, surfers have no weapon of defense or offense in the waters.

Repellant, spear gun, electrical shock tools don’t work, attacks are too sudden and usually invisible, only bait and hooks works, it is next to impossible to catch this shark.

Lifeguards recommends that swimmers swim in waters below neck level not that sharks won’t come into that depth but they dislike shallow waters.

Scuba divers recommend kicking or hitting a shark in the nose, gills or eyes to discourage them, that’s if you can see them in time! In Hawaii there is such thing as shark wrestling, it is a dangerous sport. One told me that the best thing to have when skin diving or scuba diving is to have a stick with a sharpened nail tip on it.

In general surface swiming or surfing is more dangerous than scuba diving because when your underwater your chances of “seeing” the shark before an attack is better if the water is clear!


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