Romeo Ortiz, a professional lifeguard, was the first rescuer to treat the woman who was bitten by a shark Monday in Rockaway Beach, Queens (NYC).
It was the first case of a shark attack on a bather in New York City in nearly 70 years. But the resourceful Hispanic lifeguard of the Parks Department stated in an interview with the Daily News that nothing, not even that historic ordeal, could keep you out of the ocean. In fact, two days later she was back at work.
Ortiz, 30, was nearing the end of his shift around 5:50 p.m. Monday when he heard a scream on the shore and sprang into action. He was soon joined by his colleague Bill McDonnell, 24. They both carried the wounded woman to the arena and they stopped the blood from his open wound with a makeshift tourniquet using jeans and rope.
The victim was later identified as Tatyana Koltunyuk, a 65-year-old Ukrainian immigrant residing in Astoria (Queens) She remained hospitalized two days after the shark went through his leg up to the femur and tore the fleshexposing that bone, the largest in the human body.
Ironically, Ortiz sports a shark tattoo on his chest and has been a lifeguard since he was 16 years old. “I’m back to work. Nothing will make me sick and tired of the beach,” she said Wednesday.. Although he declined to talk about the incident or the victim, he insisted that he has a deep passion and strong respect for water.
“It was wild. My brother is a hero.” her sister Kristina Ortiz said Wednesday. “She’s saved people before, but this is different, Something out of a movie.”
The young man has reported to work every summer as a lifeguard, except when he was serving a season in the Navy. This year was the first time he had been assigned to Rockaway Beach.
According to her sister, the shark-bitten victim is a familiar face on that beach. “She comes (and) swims a lot,” Kristina said.
The NYPD deployed four-rotor drones over the beach immediately after the incident on Monday, but did not see any sharks. The bite occurred in the middle of a Increase in shark sightings off New York City and Long Island beaches due to factors including improved water quality and thriving populations of the bunkerfish that feed the sharks.
There has been at least five cases of swimmers and surfers injured by sharks on Long Island beaches this summer. Last week in the outskirts of NYC some beaches were closed to the public after the sighting of live and dead sharks.
This summer, drones certified by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) are being used to monitor sharks and protect bathers on the beaches with an estimated investment of $145,000 from the state budget from New York.
Experts say that shark bites are extremely rare, with only 57 unprovoked cases last year in the entire US, according to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida.
In May a fifteen-year-old surfer was bitten by a shark on a beach in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. Last summer there was an unusual series of human-shark encounters in and around New York. Some experts say there are not necessarily more sharks, but rather more sightings now that there is more monitoring.
Even in August of last year, a bather starred in what could be considered the most unusual video of summer 2022, at least in New York, when he was caught fighting bare-handed with a shark on the shore of a beach on Fire Island (Long Island). .
