Shark in Monterey Bay attack was as long as an SUV, biologists say

PACIFIC GROVE — A great white shark that attacked and nearly killed a swimmer last month in Monterey Bay was “a minimum estimated length” of 14 to 15 feet long, state wildlife officials have concluded.

That size — roughly the length of a Toyota 4Runner — is typical for an adult white shark, experts said Monday. The shark bit Steve Bruemmer, 62, of Monterey, at 10:35 a.m. on June 22, when he was swimming about 150 yards off Lovers Point, a popular beach area in Pacific Grove.

Bruemmer was released from the hospital late last week after being treated for severe lacerations to his legs and torso.

Biologists with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, working with Chris Lowe, a marine biologist with Cal State Long Beach, estimated the shark’s size based on the size of the bite marks on Bruemmer’s wetsuit, along with photos of his injuries, and a description he provided in conversations with them, Lowe said Monday.

He noted that authorities looked for the shark after the attack, but had no luck.

“They had drones up, they had people in the water, but nothing was spotted,” he said. “It could be anywhere.”

White sharks off California regularly swim hundreds of miles across the Pacific Ocean. Lowe said the chance of this one biting somebody else is not likely.

“The chances are very low,” he said. “We just don’t see that. People should keep using the ocean. Realize sharks are always out there. Understand these events are really rare.”

Statistics bear that out. Since 1950, when modern records began, 15 people have died in California from shark attacks, most of them by great whites, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Millions of people go into the water every year to surf, swim, paddle board, spear fish and snorkel, making the odds of an attack extremely low, experts say.

In May 2020, surfer Ben Kelly, 26, of Santa Cruz, was killed in a shark attack about 100 yards off Manresa State Beach in Aptos. Kelly bled to death after a great white shark bit him behind his right knee, striking an artery. An investigation by state wildlife biologists found the shark was at least 10 feet long.

In the Pacific Grove attack, Bruemmer, who swims regularly in the ocean with a swimming club, said he was enjoying the day when all of a sudden his life changed.

“I was just gliding through the water looking at the sea grasses and the sea stars,” he said in a video released last Thursday by Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, the day he was well enough to return home from the hospital’s care. “I was about 150 yards from being done near the beach when — just wham! I don’t even know exactly what happened, but, well it turns out I was bit ferociously by a shark right across my thighs and my abdomen.”

“It grabbed me and pulled me up, and then dove me down in the water,” added Bruemmer, a retired IT specialist at Monterey Peninsula College. “Then of course it spit me out. I’m not a seal. It’s looking for a seal. We’re not their food. It spit me out and it was looking at me, right next to me. I thought it could bite me again so I pushed it with my hand and I kicked at it with my foot and it left. I got myself back to the surface and started yelling for help.”

Moments after Bruemmer was attacked, severely bleeding and yelling for help, several people nearby rushed to his rescue, including Aimee Johns, a nurse from Folsom, and her husband, Paul Bandy, an off-duty Sacramento police officer, who were paddle boarding in the area as part of a trip to celebrate their wedding anniversary. A nearby surfer, Heath Braddock, also came to help.

They put Bruemmer on two boards, brought him to the beach, and applied tourniquets. He was rushed to the hospital, where he had a two-hour operation that used 28 units of blood. He was lucky the bites had not severed an artery, which would have been fatal, doctors said.

Bruemmer has had nothing but praise for his rescuers ever since.

“How do you get in bloody water with maybe a shark circling beneath you to save a stranger?” he said. “They’re amazing.”