Ninth fatal attack

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34041, 3 January 1976, Page 1

Ninth fatal attack

The fatal shark attack yesterday was the ninth in New Zealand waters.

Graham John Hitt, an underwater spear fisherman, was severely mutilated and killed by a shark at Aramoana, at the entrance to Otago Harbour on September 15, 1968.

On March 9, 1967, William Richard Black, the captain of the St Hilda Surf Life-saving Club, died after being savaged by a shark during a surf race at St Kilda beach, Dunedin. Mr L. F. Jordan, a 19-year-old law’ student, died soon after he was taken from the water at St Clair, Dunedin, on February 5, 1964, after a shark had severed his right leg above the knee. A 14-year-old school girl. Miss R. M. Keightlcy, died while being brought

to shore on a surf board at Oakura beach, New Plymouth, on January 9, 1966, after she had been mutilated by a shark.

Mr W. M. Hutchinson, an engineer and surveyor, who was carrying his son on his shoulders in about three feet of water, had the calf of his leg ripped off and died 15 minutes later at Moeraki, south of Oamaru, on February 5, 1907.

Two men died in December, 1896. Eric Reynolds died in an attack at the Taramakau River mouth on the West Coast, and a man named Bright Copper died at Napier.

The earliest recorded attack was in December, 1852, in which a John Barmer of the 65th Regiment was mauled off Te Aro beach, Wellington.