A man swimming at a Long Island beach may have been bitten by a shark, according to witnesses and officials, leading to a bloody scene.
The man, believed to be in his 30s, was in the water at a packed Jones Beach around noon on Friday. Witnesses said he appeared to be struggling while coming out of the water, and he suddenly fell to the ground.
According to the witnesses, one of the man’s feet was bleeding profusely. Lifeguards came to aid the man, with one sacrificing his shirt to use as a tourniquet around the foot. A Parks Department spokesperson told NBC New York the gash on the man’s foot was quite large, and it looked like possibly a tooth had caused the cut.
EMTs at the beach also believed it may have been a shark bite. The man was taken to Nassau University Medical Center to treat his injuries, which were not considered to be life-threatening.
Lifeguards kept the large crowds — about 100,000 people were believed to have gone to the Nassau County beach during the day — out of the water while they went out on jet skis to search for any sharks in the surf. Other teams took boats and searched the water using drones.
After about an hour of no shark sightings, beachgoers were allowed back in the water, but only allowed to go up to their waists.
