The shark mania that grips the country each summer began July 1, 1916, when a young stockbroker from Philadelphia headed into the surf at Beach Haven, N.J. Before then, there wasn’t much fear about attacks from the deep at the Jersey Shore.
, which heightens interest in the deadly fish each year. But it’s nothing like the frenzy that was kicked off more than a century ago in New Jersey.“It was the Titanic of shark attacks,” said Richard Fernicola, a New Jersey physician and author ofOnly a few people on the beach noticed Vansant increasingly frantic in the water, thinking he was calling to the dog he had been swimming with.
His friends, still naked from skinny-dipping, ran through the town shouting “Shark! Shark! A shark got Lester,” Fernicola said. A crowd gathered and a group of young men began to swim warily in the shallows, hoping to find a sign of the boy’s body. One of them, a tall tailor named Stanley Fisher, dove deeper than the rest. With Lester’s parents standing with the throng of onlookers, he made a final dive, staying down a long time. Finally, he broke the surface.
Nearly the entire town was watching as Fisher, struggling to get his footing in the mud, was slammed from his right. They saw the massive shark pull him down, spin him around and chew great chunks of his flesh. They said Fisher, an athlete, fought like a wild man, punching and kicking the dark beast in a cloud of blood and water. But the shark only let go when frantic rescuers in a boat beat him with an oar. When they pulled Fisher out, little was left of his right thigh.
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