Smith Point Beach lifeguard Zack Gallo was bitten on the chest and right arm during his terrifying encounter with the 4- to 5-foot shark, Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Bellone said. “He was playing the role of the victim, and in the midst of that, he actually became a victim when this shark bite happened,” Bellone said at a news conference. Gallo fought off the shark by “slamming” it, Bellone said, according to news reports. The injuries to the lifeguard’s hand likely “occurred as he was striking the shark,” Bellone said. “At that point, the interaction is over.” Other guards who were already in the water for the exercise rushed to help Gallo, who was “bleeding profusely,” but the victim was miraculously able to get out of the water unaided, said Pol. Smith Point Beach was closed Sunday after a “shark-related incident” involving a lifeguard.Edmund J Coppa The injured lifeguard was then bandaged and taken to a local hospital, Bellone said. “Thankfully, he’s doing well,” Bellone said. “He’s in very good spirits at Southside Hospital… he’s getting some stitches. The town of Hempstead also formed a “Shark Patrol” after a fisherman spotted a 10-foot Mako shark over Memorial Day weekend about 11 miles west of Jones Beach.Getty Images/iStockphoto “Ironically, if there was ever a time to interact with a shark like this where you would end up getting bitten, that was when a victim was playing, and there were actually some of our other lifeguards in that exercise. who are already going out, and in the middle of the incident, all of a sudden he became a real victim,” Bellone said, according to Newsday. The beach was closed after the attack. Bellone says authorities took out a drone monitoring the water later and saw a shark, but “We don’t know if it was the same shark or not.” A second beach east of Smith Point, Cupsogue, was also closed Sunday “due to hazardous marine activity,” county parks officials said. Three days earlier, nearby Jones Beach in Nassau County saw a swimmer suffer a “possible shark bite,” prompting county police to increase beach patrols ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend. The town of Hempstead also formed a “Shark Patrol” after a fisherman spotted a 10-foot Mako shark over Memorial Day weekend about 11 miles west of Jones Beach. Shark attacks on Long Island “are extremely rare,” county officials said, but have increased in frequency recently. The past two years have seen more shark sightings than the entire previous decade combined.
