A South Carolina man was bitten by a shark while paddleboarding off Flagler Beach on Saturday morning, April 25, near South 17th Street.
Brian Miller, 44, was 100 to 200 yards offshore between 9 and 9:30 a.m. when he was bitten on the left foot. Miller, who was visiting friends in the area, had borrowed a paddleboard for the morning. He had jumped into the water once before paddling toward a group of dolphins he had spotted in the swells, and was on his second swim when the bite occurred.
In interviews after the incident, Miller said the bite was brief and that the shark did not pull him under.
“It was surreal,” he told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “It felt like one of your friends was messing with you and just grabbed your foot and gave it a tug.”
“Just a split second, it didn’t pull me under or anything,” Miller said. “It was just a grab and tug for just a split second.”
Miller paddled back to shore on his knees. After examining his foot in the water and confirming all of his toes were intact, he made it back to the beach, where friends including chiropractor Adam Lemnouni helped clean the wound with peroxide. They drove him to AdventHealth Palm Coast on State Road 100.
Miller received 22 stitches on one side of his foot and nine on the other, for a total of 31 stitches. The wound did not damage any bones.
“Luckily, [the shark] didn’t crush any of the bones or take any of the bones,” he told WESH. “All the bones were intact.”
Miller did not see the shark before or after the bite and was unable to identify the species or estimate its size. He said the bite cut both his big toe and little toe, and described the marks left on his foot as four distinct lines.
“It came from the bottom, and it got both sides at once,” he said.
Miller said the experience would not keep him out of the ocean.
“I don’t think it’s gonna hold me back,” he said. “I’m confident that I’ll be able to be right back out there.”
Shark Bites in Flagler County
Shark bites are uncommon in Flagler County. Most shark bites in northeast Florida occur in Volusia County, where New Smyrna Beach has been called the “Shark Bite Capital of the World” for the frequency of incidents off its coast. Volusia County consistently leads Florida and the world in annual shark bite incidents according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, while Flagler County records very few by comparison.
Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, has offered several recommendations for swimmers and paddleboarders looking to reduce the risk of an encounter:
- Avoid swimming where baitfish are visible or jumping out of the water, which can indicate predators are chasing them.
- Avoid wearing shiny jewelry, which can resemble fish scales in sunlight.
- Avoid swimming alone.
- Avoid swimming at dawn or dusk.
- Avoid swimming where fishing is taking place.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office and Flagler Beach Ocean Rescue have not issued any beach advisories or warnings as of publication.
This article will be updated if additional information becomes available.
