In the seas near the Bahamas on Tuesday, a shark attacked and killed a U.S. cruise ship guest who was snorkeling, according to officials.
A 58-year-old Pennsylvania lady was engaged in the incident, which happened at a well-liked snorkeling location close to Green Cay in the northern Bahamas, police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Chrislyn Skippings told The Associated Press. According to Skippings, the woman’s relatives determined it to be a bull shark.
According to a statement from Royal Caribbean International, the passenger passed away after being admitted to a nearby hospital for treatment, and the business is assisting their loved ones. They said that the passenger had been traveling aboard Harmony of the Seas, which left Florida on Sunday, and had been taking part in an independent shore excursion in Nassau.
Authorities have not officially named the lady, but Caroline DiPlacido, an alumnus and current employee at Gannon University, a private Catholic institution in Erie, Pennsylvania, has. According to the university, she served as the project coordinator for the Erie campus’ Office of Community and Government Relations.
“Caroline was a powerful presence of kindness and friendship to colleagues, students, and the wider community and cherished many family ties to Gannon,” the university said. “The news is devastating, and she will be missed.”
The school said she is survived by her mother, husband and three children.
The majority of shark attacks in the Caribbean have occurred in the Bahamas, with two reported in 2019, one of them fatal. That incident involved a Southern California woman who was on vacation and was attacked by three sharks near Rose Island, located just a half mile from where Tuesday’s attacked occurred.
In December 2020, a fatal shark attack was reported in the French Caribbean territory of St. Martin, the first such incident in that region.
Overall, at least 32 shark attacks have been reported in the Bahamas since 1749, a number followed by 13 attacks in Cuba during that time period, including one in 2019, according to the Florida-based International Shark Attack File.
Michael Heithaus, a marine biologist at Florida International University in Miami, said in a phone interview that the high number of attacks in the Bahamas is likely linked to the fact that there are a lot of people in the water in that area and that it has a robust marine ecosystem.
He said the Bahamas has a variety of shark species, the majority of which do not pay attention to people, except for bull sharks and tiger sharks.
“They get to very large sizes, and they eat big prey,” Heithaus said, adding that sharks have incredible sensory systems and can be attracted to food, sounds and smells in the water.
But overall, shark attacks remain rare, he stressed.
Worldwide, there were 137 shark attacks last year, 73 of them unprovoked, according to the International Shark Attack File.