A 30-year-old German citizen died on Monday aboard a Spanish Air Force helicopter that evacuated her to a hospital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria after a shark attack in the Atlantic Ocean, 514 kilometers from the Canary Islands, the Spanish Maritime Rescue Service confirmed to Efe, UNN reports .
Details
The incident, first reported by atlanticohoy.com, occurred shortly before 16:00 (Canary Island time) in the open sea, about 180 kilometers east of the city of Dakhla (Sahara).
The crew of the British catamaran Dalliance Chichester, on which the woman was traveling, asked for help from the Spanish Maritime Rescue Service at about 15:55. The service shares international rescue responsibilities in the region with the Moroccan Navy.
Because of this, the Spanish Maritime Rescue Service contacted the control center in Rabat, Morocco, which asked Spain to take over this emergency because it had no rescue facilities in the area.
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The maritime rescue service immediately issued a warning to all vessels in the vicinity of the catamaran, one of which came closer and was able to provide medicine for the crew.
A Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter of the Spanish Air Force was sent from Gran Canaria to help the victim, which took the woman away at about 20:05, the sources said.
A woman who lost her leg to a shark attack suffered cardiac arrest during the flight and arrived dead at Dr. Negrin Hospital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The catamaran on which the woman was traveling departed on September 14 from the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, heading south, according to the route registered by navigation systems for tracking maritime traffic, such as marinetraffic.com or vesselfinder.com.
According to the International Shark Incident Registry maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History (USA), there have been only six confirmed shark incidents in the Canary Islands and one more that is considered probable. None of them were fatal.
No similar incident has been reported in the area where Monday's incident occurred, or in the surrounding areas. The closest incident, other than those in the Canary Islands, was reported in the African archipelago of Cape Verde.
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