A 71-year-old lifeguard and park manager in Maine had a harrowing encounter with a great white shark off the coast over the weekend. Greg Wilfert, who has worked at Scarborough Beach for 55 years, was swimming around the buoys with a few other lifeguards when he was pulled five to six feet under the water by the shark.
Wilfert initially thought his rescue can had gotten caught on a boat, but he quickly realized it was a great white shark. He was able to remove the strap from the rescue device and swim back to shore to safety without any further interactions with the shark.
Response to the Incident
Once he made it back to shore, Wilfert warned the beachgoers, had them get out of the water, and shut down the beach for an hour. Since his encounter, Wilfert has had jet skis and drones keeping an eye on the water for other great white sharks.
Wilfert is taking his encounter seriously, especially given the recent increase in great white activity in the area. He stated, ‘There’s a lot of beaches that we have around here that there’s no lifeguards, and they have the presence of these great whites, and you need to take it seriously.’
Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
