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Publication Date: Friday, August 02, 2002

Gutsy girl tells about fighting off shark

Avery Olearczyk, 9, hasn't slowed down much since a shark attacked her at Wrightsville Beach, N.C., on the Fourth of July. She wields her crutches gracefully, swinging her leg with its bright blue and pink cast, and finally was willing to talk earlier this week about the nightmare in the surf on that balmy late afternoon less than a month ago.

The Pleasanton family - mom Patricia, dad Matthew, Avery and her sister Lisa, 8 - was at Wrightsville Beach for a family reunion. Late that afternoon, Avery and Lisa were playing with their cousins in the 85-degree water, and Matthew and his brother-in-law Tim Miserendino were standing in the surf keeping an eye on them.

Avery and her cousin Megan Golhofer, 10, from Texas, were in the water about mid-thigh, a little apart from the others.

"I was sort of splashing in the water, me and my cousin Megan," recalled Avery. "Then my dad was screaming, 'Get out of the water! Get out of the water!' My dad was taking everybody out and so was my Uncle Tim.

"Then I felt the teeth, on one side of my foot. He bit me three times. I just whacked it and whacked it," she continued. "And I yelled, 'I'm getting bit! Help! Help!' He bit me three more times, then he came from behind and bit the back of my leg. I felt it come behind me.

"The whole time I was running. I was getting up as fast as I could. Megan turned around and screamed and ran out of the water. She kept crying for 45 minutes - she was just frightened. Then my dad ran into the water and got me."

"I saw the fin, it was like out of the movies," said Matthew Olearczyk. "He came and turned right in front of me, going fast. He was about 5 feet long. When he turned I saw the two fins down in the water. I think it was a bull shark, like the one that bit the kid in Florida. The shark thought Avery's foot was a fish."

Lisa said that she was learning to ride waves into the shore and had just come up from a dive into the surf. "I was wiping the water off my face and my dad grabbed me," she recalled.

When Olearczyk heard Avery screaming, at first he thought she may have stepped on something sharp, like a shell, and been scared.

"Then all of a sudden she was down in the water. She was punching his nose with her right arm, she actually got her hand in his mouth, it was bleeding, too," he said. "Then I pulled her up out of the water and saw the damage and the blood. It was total chaos. I threw Avery over my shoulder and started running. By the time we got to where the family was congregated we could see all the blood and knew we were in trouble."

The lifeguard, summoned by Miserendino, at first told Olearczyk to calm down, but when he saw the wounds he took a step backward in surprise and called for help. Paramedics arrived quickly and Avery was rushed to the Cape Fear Hospital.

"Avery was bitten at 5:15 and was in recovery in her room at 10:15 after two hours of surgery," Olearczyk said. They had called in an orthopedic surgeon who told them the Achilles tendon was severed in two places, a common injury among athletes. The real danger was infection, so Avery was given massive doses of antibiotics. She received 40 stitches, including those from the tendon repair.

Olearczyk cleaned the wounds frequently until they had healed enough for a cast to be put on the leg Tuesday for the tendon to heal. A chunk the size of a quarter was also bitten off her leg, but it has healed nicely, Olearczyk said. The doctor declared Avery "out of the woods" earlier this week regarding infection and they expect 100 percent recovery.

Patricia and Matthew Olearczyk are unhappy that the shark was referred to in the local North Carolina papers as a "fish," and no warnings were given. Two weeks later a 15-year-old girl was attacked at Emerald Island off the coast of North Carolina, they noted.

"We feel strongly about educating people," said Patricia Olearczyk. "Our hope is that we can help other people avoid what happened to us."

They know now they were doing two things wrong: swimming in the late afternoon and between two piers. Sharks feed in the early morning and late afternoon, and they tend to hang around piers, where there is fishing.

The Olearczyks say that the authorities in the Wrightsville Beach area insist they could not be sure it was a shark. But Olearczyk knows what he saw. And George H. Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida in Gainesville, examined photographs taken of Avery's foot, which was covered with puncture wounds and teeth marks.

"The photos unequivocally demonstrate that a shark was involved in the bite," Burgess wrote to them in an e-mail immediately after receiving photos taken in the hospital. "I am sorry that you were not told the truth about your daughter's injuries. There is absolutely no doubt that a shark was involved, the marks are classic shark injuries."

"We've been swimming there all our lives and never knew," said Patricia Olearczyk. "There were hundreds of people on the beach."

The family feels thankful that it was not worse. A bite further up the calf could have resulted in permanent injuries.

Olearczyk said that a nurse at Cape Fear told him how lucky he was that Avery fought the shark. "She said that 90 percent of people will freeze up and don't do anything."

"She was in such good spirits," noted her mom. "She wanted to stay and visit her grandparents." Indeed, she was out of the hospital and at the reunion the very next day.

Avery is sorry to miss this soccer season. She plays defense and is nicknamed "The Great Wall." But she is also an avid reader, and is enjoying crafts and baking with her mom and sister. She was touched by everyone's concern and said that her third-grade teacher from Quarry Lane School even called her at the hospital in North Carolina.

Avery thinks she'll probably go into the ocean again someday but not right away. She says she was cautious about sharks even before the attack and for that reason didn't go on boogie boards. "People had been teasing me (about sharks), but after that they said they were sorry," said Avery, with a smile.

Be careful - and fight back