Shark clamped California swimmer in its jaws then spit him out. Now he’s going home
Steve Bruemmer was locked in a shark’s jaws and pulled under water before he was spit out in California’s Monterey Bay.
Now Bruemmer has been discharged from the Natividad Medical Center in Salinas — three weeks after the June 22 attack, the hospital said in a statement.
“I was in a tough spot. And everyone was so caring. I’m going home now. I’m going to recover. I’m going to be OK. Thanks to you all,” he said in a statement.
Bruemmer, a triathlete, was swimming alone at Lovers Point beach in Pacific Grove when he was bit “ferociously by a shark” across his thighs and abdomen.
Then the shark spit him out, he said in a video statement.
“I am not a seal. It was looking for a seal. We’re not their food,” he said.
Once Bruemmer kicked the shark and pushed it away with his hand, the shark left.
In bloody water, Bruemmer began yelling for help.
“That’s when all of my luck changed,” he said.
A nurse and Sacramento police officer who had been paddleboarding heard Bruemmer yell. A surf instructor also heard him and grabbed an extra surf board and brought it into the water, he said.
Bruemmer was taken to the hospital in under an hour and he was treated for shark wounds to his abdomen and thighs.
He had a “pretty clear U-ring,” or shark bite, around his pelvis, Nicholas Rottler, a trauma surgeon at the hospital, said in the statement.
However, Bruemmer did “remarkably well” in the hospital’s rehabilitation center, Natividad Acute Rehabilitation Center medical director Dr. Anthony Galicia said in the release.
“Even with weight-bearing restrictions in his right leg, he is able to do so much more now than he was when he first came to the unit,” Galicia said. “Being a swimmer and in really good physical condition before the shark bite definitely made his functional recovery easier.”
Bruemmer also said he will be able to walk again one day.
This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 1:29 PM with the headline "Shark clamped California swimmer in its jaws then spit him out. Now he’s going home."
