Surfboard Only Victim Of Ore. Shark Attack

COOS BAY, Ore.

After a frightening shark attack off a Coos County beach, Bill Weaver is grateful that the only visible damage done was to his surfboard.

Weaver, 28, a Coos Bay elementary school teacher, was attacked Saturday afternoon while surfing at Bastendorff Beach near Charleston.

"Think of the scariest monster you can imagine," he said. "There's nothing I could have done. I came really close to being eaten and there was nothing I could have done."

The shark attack, which lasted about 8 seconds, was the third in 10 months off the southern Oregon Coast.

Weaver said he and a friend, Dale Inskeep, were sitting on their surfboards talking when the 15-foot shark hit in 8 feet of water.

"I felt a jolt and started to rise up out of the water," Weaver said. "The second it hit, I knew what it was, because the water was washing off its sides like a submarine."

The shark bit the board where Weaver's leg had been dangling seconds earlier.

It tried to pull the board away from Weaver, then bit it a second time, with Weaver hanging on.

The torn fiberglass apparently cut the animal, because the board's bite marks have blood on them. Weaver was not cut.

Times staff, news services