Surfer Wonders If Shark Attacked Him After Suffering Gash Off Queens Beach

NEW YORK CITY — A surfer was rushed to the hospital with a gash to his foot after suffering a mystery wound off a Queens beach that he thinks could have been a shark attack.

Michah Behrend, 33, got 40 stitches in his right foot following the incident at Rockaway Beach Sunday, he said.

Behrend, who lives Greenwich Village, said he's unsure whether it was a shark that bit him — though a baby great white shark named Bruin was spotted in waters nearby on Monday, according to the marine biology research group OCEARCH.

"I really don’t know exactly what happened — it happened so quickly — but the doctor did say it looked like a bite," Behrend said in a phone interview Wednesday. He posted photos of his wounds on Facebook in a post that's been shared more than 900 times.

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An expert on shark attacks said the wounds didn't look they'd been caused by a shark, which typically leaves a series of semicircular marks.

"The long and short of it is it’s not a shark," said George H. Burgess, the director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, which tracks shark attacks worldwide.

The injury happened after Behrend got caught in a big wave and lost his surfboard around 4 p.m. Sunday, he said. He felt something brush against his right leg as he was going to retrieve it and then noticed flaps of skin coming loose from his foot, he said.

Behrend immediately ran to shore, used his towel to tie a tourniquet around his foot and called 911, he said. Though his first thought was ,"This is going to be bad," he didn't cause a scene by screaming about a shark in the water, he said.

"Adrenaline kicked in and I just remembered my old Boy Scout training," said Behrend, a former Eagle Scout who now works in finance.

Paramedics responded to the Rockaway Boardwalk at Beach 96th Street to treat Behrend at 3:36 p.m. before taking him to Jamaica Hospital in Queens, an FDNY spokesman said. The FDNY was unable to confirm whether the cuts on Behrend's foot came from a shark bite.

Behrend stayed for 10 to 11 hours in the hospital. He walked into work on crutches on Monday "to a standing ovation at the office," Behrend told Patch in a text message. He said he's currently working from home and is "still in a lot of pain."

Bruin, the baby great white shark tagged by OCEARCH, which tracks dozens of sharks' movements, was spotted near the Rockaways on Monday morning. But it's unlikely that Behrend had a run-in with the five-foot shark the day before, shark expert Burgess said.

"It could have been anything," Behrend said.

OCEARCH's shark tracker clearly shows sharks in the water near the Rockaways, the group told Patch in a Twitter message.

While the Queens beach is "a good spot to find sharks in that area," a shark's teeth leave a series of arc-shaped cuts in a curved pattern, unlike the wounds in Behrend's foot, Burgess said after looking at the surfer's Facebook photos.

Shark attacks are rare in New York — the state has only seen 10 since 1837, according to the International Shark Attack File, an initiative of the Florida Museum. The last one happened in August 2015 to a teenage boy who was boogie-boarding at Atlantic Beach on Long Island, Burgess said.

Going to the beach is a weekly ritual for Behrend, one that his injury won't bring to an end, he said. He plans to start surfing again sometime after his stitches are removed two weeks from now.

"It’s really about connecting to the ocean and finding that necessary for stress relief in my life," Behrend said. "It’s not going to keep me away from the water, that’s for sure."

(Lead image courtesy of Michah Behrend)