A drunk man died after going into the sea to wee at a Brazilian beach and being attacked by a shark.
A bystander filmed the body of 51-year-old Marcelo Rocha Santos as he lay motionless on the sand with his gruesome injuries that included a missing hand and a chunk bitten out of his leg.
The incident took place at Piedade Beach in the Brazilian city of Jaboatao dos Guararapes on Saturday 10th July.
The victim was taken to hospital in the neighbouring city of Recife where he arrived without vital signs and was pronounced dead.
The attack took place off an area of the beach where there had been 12 previous shark attacks. A lifeguard was on duty at the time, but was unable to prevent the attack from taking place.
Mechanic Edriano Gomes told reporters that the victim had been drinking with friends. He entered the water at around 2 pm when the weather had gone cloudy and the sea was becoming choppy.
Gomes said: “It was a friend of mine who was in the sea with the person who was attacked. Suddenly, he saw the man struggling. There was a lot of blood in the water.”
When the shark attacked, only the victim and the other person who escaped unharmed were in the water at the time.
The other person, glazier Ademir Sebastiao da Silva, told reporters: “As the beach has no bathroom, I went into the sea to pee. I was beside him with the water up to our waists.”
Marcelo’s friends brought the victim to shore where he fell to the ground unconscious.
It is not known what kind of shark attacked him, though experts say it was probably a bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) or a tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier).
The scene of the incident is a shark-attack hotspot, as it is open and unprotected by reefs. Shark attacks are also more common at this time of year as the rains make the sea murky.
It is believed that despite the various signs warning people not to enter the water, the lifeguard on duty did not tell the two men to get out of the sea as they were only up to their waists.
In the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, where Jaboatao dos Guararapes is located and which has around 187 kilometres (116 mi) of coast, there have been 62 shark attacks with 25 fatalities since 1992 when building works at Suape Port disrupted the animals’ breeding and hunting habits.
