Sister vs. Shark; draw

Personal post. I just heard that my little sister, Megan, was attacked by a 14- to 18-foot shark while surfing earlier today.

MeganI’ve talked to my family there, and they say that she is doing surprisingly well. The shark grabbed her and dragged her under, but she fought him off and got back to the surface. She was airlifted to a local hospital where they performed emergency surgery.

She has a number of deep puncture wounds to her leg (to the bone), and some of the muscle was taken, but a major artery was missed, and she is out of the first surgery. They are going to give her time to stabilize, and perhaps go back in surgically to make sure that everything is neatly patched up. She should be back to surfing in a few months, if she manages to take it easy and let things heal up. And to think, Mom was worried about body piercing before!

Update: Here’s a press conference video with her doctor, boyfriend, and fellow surfer. The doctors played the Beach Boys while they operated on her.

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11 Comments

  1. Posted 10/19/2005 at 11:50 pm | Permalink

    Bloody hell, that’s incredible, one heck of a sis you’ve got there!

  2. Posted 10/20/2005 at 10:56 am | Permalink

    Holy cow, Alex! I’m glad to hear she’s doing well.

  3. Posted 10/20/2005 at 10:58 am | Permalink

    FYI — and this is weird: when I left my last comment, and the comments box did that cool slidy thing that’s supposed to reveal my comment above — the comment that got revealed was not mine, but instead a comment by Jason Nolan from August 2003. I go away, I come back, and the comment there is mine.

  4. Jia
    Posted 10/20/2005 at 1:13 pm | Permalink

    Wow, that’s terrible. Glad she’s fine. What a legendary family you have! Your name might not come up on the top when googling ‘Halavais’ in the future.

  5. Carolyn H.
    Posted 10/20/2005 at 2:18 pm | Permalink

    Watched the video – that is crazy…I hope she is okay.

  6. alex
    Posted 10/20/2005 at 7:11 pm | Permalink

    K: This is all temporary. Probably won’t be using K2 long-term. Just figured I would give it a roll until I have time to redesign.

  7. mermaid
    Posted 10/21/2005 at 10:10 am | Permalink

    Soooooooooo glad to hear she is okay! and a 14 footer! what a monster! shes a cool girlie! mermaid

  8. Posted 10/21/2005 at 10:57 am | Permalink

    this is amazing!
    and wow, the reporters in the video are kind of sharky themselves. hope her leg heals fast.

  9. Orion
    Posted 10/21/2005 at 6:22 pm | Permalink

    I read the article over on Foxnews.com. Your sister must be a real fighter to get out of that one alive. Good luck to her. I wish her a speedy recovery.

  10. Posted 10/26/2005 at 8:06 am | Permalink

    Strange that I missed this… hope your sister’s doing better now. She’s strong! :D

  11. Jang Kim
    Posted 5/25/2006 at 11:24 pm | Permalink

    Statistically, the chances of being hurt by shark is extremely low, as far as I know. I believe all the bad luch in her life is used up with this unbelievable accident. I hope your sister get well as soon as possible, and get back to her normal life!

3 Trackbacks

  1. By More sharks at Alex Halavais on 10/20/2005 at 7:10 pm

    […] « Sister vs. Shark; draw […]

  2. By Family Photo at Alex Halavais on 10/25/2005 at 11:51 pm

    […] Odd that it takes a shark attack to get a decent family photo. Here are Megan, Mom, and Arthur (my brother) in one place at one time, care of AOL News: […]

  3. […] I don’t know how this slipped my various RSS radars three times, but I just learnt from my professor that his little sister, Megan Halavais, was recently attacked by a shark. Alex posted several news reports about it, including this short one which got her name all wrong (journalists aren’t any better than bloggers). News10 Sacramento had this to report: A 20-year-old woman bit by a shark while surfing off the Sonoma County coast recalled the shark as “huge” and said it was probably more scared than she was. […]

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