17 September 2024 , 21:25
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The woman, a 30-year-old German national, is said to have had her leg bitten off by the shark as she was on a catamaran in international waters 278 miles south-west of Gran Canaria’s airport
A woman has died after being attacked by a shark on a catamaran as she was rushed to a hospital in the Canary Islands.
The 30-year-old German lost her fight for life in a Spanish Air Force helicopter as she was being evacuated to a Gran Canaria hospital.
She was officially pronounced dead after arriving at Doctor Negrin Hospital in the Gran Canaria capital Las Palmas yesterday night.
She is said to have had her leg bitten off by the shark as she was on a catamaran in international waters 278 miles south-west of Gran Canaria’s airport and around 110 miles east of the city of Dakhla in the disputed territory of Western Sahara which is currently occupied by Morocco.
The catamaran she was a crew member of has been named as British-flagged vessel Dalliance Chichester, which had left the Spanish holiday island on September 14.
She had been travelling on a British-flagged catamaran at the time fo the attack ( Image: SOLARPIX.COM)
Spanish Coastguards are said to have informed their Moroccan counterparts as well as UK coastguards because of the origin of the catamaran.
But according to local reports Moroccan authorities refused to transfer the injured woman to Rabat for emergency medical treatment.
The unnamed woman was pronounced dead yesterday just after 11pm after going into cardiac arrest in the Spanish military chopper The shark attack is understood to have happened around 4pm the same day.
In June, shark sightings shuttered several Spanish resorts, with one forced to close just hours after local officials gave tourists the greenlight to return.
Lifeguards ordered bathers out of the water at Melenara Beach on Gran Canaria’s east coast after a police drone spotted a hammerhead shark off the beach.
The neighbouring Salinetas beach quickly followed, with Playa de San Agustín close behind, as lifeguards were seen hoisting a red flag at the spot just two hours later when a tourist photographed the tell-tale fin of a shark sticking out of the water. One of the shark appearances was reportedly spotted by a tourist near a restaurant overlooking the sea called Balcon de San Augustin. Red Cross officials later confirmed they had also seen it.