threemae:
Huh. Did you miss the bit where the guy was the kid’s uncle? Ya know, family? Love? We’re not talking fucking triage here, or a rational and objective evaluation of the possible cost-benefit ramifications of trying to rescue the kid, we’re talking trying to save the life of someone you care about.
He could be Lenny surrounded by rabbits for all I give a shit–if he were my brother risking his life for my son I’d spend the rest of my life kissing the ground he walks on.
Hero? Fuck yeah.
Well, going by the ultra-conservative collaborators, Fox News 
, I am under the understanding that the shark was already off the boy. All that this guy did was wrestle the shark to shore to have it killed to retrieve the arm. Fox News also claims that the boy was airlifted at around 30 minutes after the incident. Considering that this is central Florida and that from the time of a call to Flight Life from a 911 dispatcher to being in the air should not take more than 5-7 minutes, that the fact that they were dealing with a cored out kid should have meant a hot-load for the helicopter in under about 3 to four, and this place is not more than twenty minutes by air to anyplace, I am lead to suspect that had the uncle concentrated more on the boy than on the boy’s arm as far as calling 911 immediately, this kid might have had a better chance at avoiding brain damage. Finally, considering that this kid is facing extensive organ damage from hypovolemic shock in less fragile organs than his brain, I am going to guess that this kid ends up either a vegetable or dead in a month after a progressive slide.
Finally, most people cannot wrestle 250 lb sharks. Maybe this guy had a history of pro-shark wrestling, but probably not. As it stands, this guy was probably lucky as hell that he is not dead right now. I fail to see the point of a dead uncle.
Unfortunately, if people do not have good chances at survival, i.e. ANY core, they lose out in triage. People that are cored out, people with untreatable medical conditions such as decapitation, or people with brain matter showing are simply abandoned. Harsh but true. The only resource availailable on scene that could possibly do blood transfusions, the Life Flight helicopter, probably only caries three-to-four units of blood. An adult holds around six. Considering that people were reporting the child as already in cardiac arrest, if the uncle was extremely serious, the flight nurse probably would have had to say screw it to the kid and transport the uncle. The child would have still been transported by ground, but then he would have had an even greater chance of being killed. All that most rescues can do is administer high flow saline IV’s to treat blood loss, they cannot transfuse like most helicopters can. The kid would have been screwed.
Other than that, the shark is just another everyday hero, doing his job daily with a smile and dignity . God-bless the bastard shark that goes about his days just looking with solemn dignity for 8 year olds to eat. 
WOW! I wrote this thread to talk about heroism and human caring, not to knock sharks or deify them for that matter.
Mr.or Mrs. Threemae -> walking into a thread by saying
Pretty much speaks a lot for your view right off the bat. I am sorry you think in such a way about your self but if this were my child and I saw
Threemae:
As a reply to this thread I would pretty much not dignify any response by you as having any substance or integrity…
Philosphr wrote:
I haven’t seen the footage of which you speak, but I have heard about it. I wonder, though, can you tell the difference between a shark and a dolphin from a helicopter? There are a lot of dolphins in the water in Florida, and it is very common for them to swim along behind the breakers. Seems to me like it would be difficult to distinguish a dolphin silhouette from a shark silhouette when viewed from above.
I don’t think that we can really sit back and call the uncle “stupid” or “smart” to do what he did–probably he didn’t think at all. But I can understand where Threemae is coming from. Paramedics are trained not to be heroic when being a hero is more likely to harm than to help. They see all the times a man runs into a hopelessly burning building to rescue his child and dies, leaving the other two children parentless. They see the times someone jumps into horribly stormy water to rescue somebody and drowns themselves, with out helping anybody. They get accused of being cowards, or at least never get called heros, for following their heads rather than their hearts, because people remember the one-in-a-million story about the man with did make it out of the burning house with a child, and when they see paramedics watching a house burn down with a child inside they assume they must be pausing out of cowerdice.
I think that in many cases it would be harder and braver and more heroic not to do the dramatic thing that your gut urges you to do because no matter who is dying, there are people that need you to be alive. And I think that were I teaching a class full of life guards, this case might be a good example of how that need to do the smart thing, not the brave thing, sometimes plays out in real life.
Simplicity itself. Sharks move their tails from side to side to propel themselves through the water. Dolphins mover their tails up and down.
Of course, the real lesson to be learned from that video is that sharks are not generally interested in eating people.
As for the footage of the sharks swimming behind the breakers I saw it on ‘SHARK WEEK’ the wonderful week on the discovery channel devoted to sharks. Great week! And ‘SPOKE-’ You do have a valid point…And ‘Minty Green’ elaborated on the point in question, " could they could be dolphins??" Well aside from the motion of their tales, which from above one can see the side-to-side motion of the shark tale, also they never come up for air, and the sharks snout is rounded and not bottle-nosed, or pointy like the dolphin. But the main point is … they were sharks, no doubt, and minty green is correct, MOST sharks don’t want to harm people, and they are fine eating skates off the bottom 10 meters away from swimming people. Granted if there was a white shark or bull, or tiger shark swimming that close to people swimming, I would get a little anxious. They are more voracious (sp?) and more likely to attack a human. [i.e. the bull shark that attacked the little boy.
As for what’Manda JO’ Says, I have to agree with the point you made:
This I agree with, but this is not what threemae said. I do not want to really re-iterate excactly what was said. I think that s/he has a fatalistic attitude and whether or not that is due to being a paramedic or not I do not know. Don’t really care… But I do agree with what Manda JO says, heroism when being a rescuer can be very harmful not only to the victim but the rescuer.
This statement got me to wondering a bit, since I had always been under the impression that bull sharks were a relatively small and innocuous species. Shows how much I know. According to the International Shark Attack File, they’re the third most dangerous shark in the water, after Whites and Tigers.
Number of recorded shark attacks by species implicated, from 1580 until 2000:
Great White: 254 attacks, 67 fatalities
Tiger: 83 attacks, 29 fatalities
Bull: 69 attacks, 17 (18? Let’s hope not) fatalities
My vote for third, the Mako (scourge of surfers world-wide), places a mere 10th, with 13 attacks and only 2 fatalities.
Took me about five minutes to locate this info. Ain’t the internet awesome?
threemae, what does “core” mean in this context?
lest we forget auntie also played a part in this drama. auntie provided wound care and cpr. they are some kinda couple.
Actually, it may be even worse than that, svinlesha. There’s a good chance that a lot of the attacks chalked up as whites are really bull sharks. They look rather similar, although full grown whites are more than twice as long, and they share the same waters in many parts of the world.
I recall reading recently about bull sharks and the attacks on the New Jersey coast in 1917. Five attacks, including four fatalaties. It’s the story that inspired Jaws, and there’s a new book out on the true story this summer. Though long attributed to a great white, a couple of those attacks actually took place several miles upriver from the coast in a freshwater river. The problem is that whites are not known to swim into fresh water. Bull sharks do so routinely, and have been found in rivers hundreds of miles from the ocean. One was caught in the Mississippi river around a hundred years ago . . . in Illinois.
Think about that the next time you dive into a muddy river. 
I think the real debate here is the wisdom of reattaching the boy’s arm.
He was in surgery for 11 hours, and required 30 pints of blood during the surgery. Someone that hemodynamically unstable really has no business in the OR for that long. If they had concentrated on the blood loss and let the arm go, he would probably have a better shot at making it.
That said, if it were me and I had a good chance at getting most of the function of the arm back, I’d want to take the gamble. It’s a damn tough call, especially when you don’t know how the bleeding is going to go.
Dr. J
Yes Auntie proivided cpr for the entire time before the paramedics arrived. This is exactly correct. Another hero to add to the notch
and ‘Minty Green’ HOLY SH**!!! There is a new book coming out?? about the true story of Jaws?? Did Peter Benchley write it ??? !!! The only reason I am interested is I was around for the year Jaws came out, and I grew up in those waters, and I never knew the original story…
This is 75% of what I am trying to say.
An uncle risking his life for an arm does not make sense. I have not yet found a source claiming that the uncle actually removed the shark from the boy. If the uncle was acting to save the boy’s life, it IS an entirely different ball game. But for what he did if it WAS for an arm, it was simply too risky and he risked interfering with the care for the boy.
Ryan, a “core” is generally applied to someone in cardiac arrest, including V Fib. and V Tach. as well as Cardiac Asystole. Some also use it to describe patients who are in respiratory arrest (typically less than 4 resp/min and poor breath sounds/tidal volume) AFTER their airway has been protected. For instance, if all that you have to do is remove an airway obstruction or take a pole off of someone’s airway, they are not necessarily in respiratory arrest.
Although in this situation, the boy would still recieve an Advanced Life Support or Paramedic standard of care, if he were “cored-out” and the uncle was emergent, the highest trained person, the flight nurse and the only one capable of transfusing would work on the uncle, because, unfortunately Baywatch just is not real. Cored out people usually die, even with immediate care, and in this case it was not a minor Right Atrial MI, or something else relatively minor, he lost a lot of blood. If he were defibulated, the previous problems of hypovolemia would be just as bad as before. Without transfusions, etc., this kid was on a one way street that cannot be backed up until they reach a hospital. This is why I did not think it was a great idea for the uncle to go wrestle the shark for a simple arm. I should not have been so critical; I have had cored-out patients (both died despite our best efforts), but I do not know how I would have reacted with a family member. But I stand by the claim that what he did was not the correct rational choice at the very least.
The whole calous bit was hyperbole, I was hedging the fact that I was making an argument against what I will conceed, regardless of how good an idea was, was an EXCEEDINGLY brave and fearless action.
For the record, I do NOT support shark’s eating 8 y.o.'s, and I hope that the 8 y.o. pulls through with minimal brain damage.
Fatalistic is not the right world, check out the definition, but I am not being “fatalistic”, I’m being realistic. Triage decisions have to be made. It is all about preserving the most life possible, and hard decisions must occasionally be made. Because all the uncle apparently saved was an arm, not the boy’s life, I stand by not agreeing with the uncle’s actions on a rational level.
Again, not saying I would have done any better if it were MY family.
Actually, it looks like there are two new books on the 1916 attacks:
Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence by Michael Capuzzo.
Twelve Days of Terror: A Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks by Richard G. Fernicola.
Newsweek gave Capuzzo’s book a lukewarm but generally positive review last week, although Fernicola’s sounds better to me.
The boy’s uncle acted heroically, to my mind. He saw a beloved child of his family attacked, and did the best he could to save that boy. The argument presented here of forethought to emergency medical procedures seems be to outside the realm of what is going through most people’s minds when in an extreme condition. It’s a state of mind that comes from training and experience. I don’t think you can judge this man’s actions by those standards.
He acted quickly, albeit foolishly in regard to his own survival, and managed to do something that can only be explained as adrenaline fueled craziness. That gap of rationalism and action in the moment defines heroism. Perhaps it wasn’t the best choice, but it was a choice made with concern beyond himself and resolving it the immediate moment . What was the alternative? The child left to bleed and die?
Perhaps, too, he saved another human life by grounding this particular shark. I don’t see sharks as evil interlopers; they’re just being sharks. But if this shark was in shallow water and attacked the child, someone else could have as easily fallen prey.
Thanks minty for the book titles.!
threemae, thank you for the clarification, I knew in the back of my mind that anyone who saves lives (which you obviously do) would not support 8 y.olds being eaten by sharks. But thank you for the clarification anyway…
From what I have read in the Florida papers online the shark had bitten the arm off in a very uncharacteristic clean bite. The boy was being taken care of by the aunt and the Uncle was dragging the shark to shore, which was not very far from where the attack happened. And the water was not deep. Apparently the rescue team was already in the vicinity and when the shark was on shore it was promptly shot. and as gross as this may seem the boys arm was hanging out of the sharks mouth, and I think this is what prompted the uncle to drag the shark on shore. It was most likely the uncle wanting to initially save the arm. The boy was being taken care of by the aunt at this point and I seem to remember she was a EMT or somehting like it.
But he didn’t know that at the time…Looking at the result, we can say “oh, well the whole arm rescuing thing was pointless because the kid is probably going to be a vegetable anyway now” but at the time he saw the kid’s arm get ripped off and probably thought “well hopefully he’ll pull through, and if I can keep him from going through the rest of his life without an arm as well, then that’s even better!” Maybe the aunt was taking care of the kid and he just got bored waiting for the ambulance, I don’t know…but he was attempting to help the kid as much as possible. And he (or the aunt) apparently bandaged the wound up and stuff, so there’s not a whole lot else he could have been doing.
The OP sounds kind of like “who should get the hero status?” and while the doctors DID do all the operation stuff, that’s what they’re supposed to do…It’s not like they were walking down the street and had someone run up to them waving a limb going “Quick! Reattatch this arm!!” I doubt many people would have risked their lives to help the kid out (sure, maybe not to save his life, but to keep him from going through a difficult life without an arm), so I figure the Uncle is the “hero”.
(but of course, this isn’t to say that the doctors and anyone else involved aren’t heros and don’t deserve a large amount of thanks or anything, that’s not what I mean at all)
http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/florida/digdocs/061921.htm
Acc. to this article, the uncle is a serious athlete. And he had help from another man in dragging the shark to shore. Also, it didn’t hurt that the shark was floundering in shallow water.
Personally, I have two thoughts about this: 1) An 8-year old child shouldn’t have been in the ocean at dusk to begin with. There’s a number of things that could have gone wrong, and the fact that sharks are most active at night is just one of them. 2) That being said, I think the uncle has shown himself to be a man of character by his subsequent actions. He seems to be a humble man and obviously cares about his nephew.
I,too, hope the little kid is okay.
Just FYI, the child’s name is Jessie Arbogast and the uncle’s name is Vance Flosenzier.