Shark Caught on Video at North Carolina Beach Where Attack Took Place
— -- A vacationer said he captured video of a shark on a North Carolina beach where a 13-year-old girl recently was bitten, and he shot the footage the day after two other shark attacks on the North Carolina coast.
Greg Phillips, 40, said he recorded the video Monday night at Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. It shows a shark he estimated to be six feet long that circled in shallow water near the shore for several minutes before swimming off, he told ABC News today.
“The shark was only 10 to 15 feet in front of where I was on the sand and the water was maybe only two to three feet deep,” Phillips said.
The 13-year-old girl suffered lacerations in a shark attack at Ocean Isle Beach on June 11, an attack that also left bite marks on her boogie board, the town's mayor told ABC News station WWAY.
In addition, Phillips shot his video a day after two shark attacks in Oak Island, North Carolina. Hunter Treschl, 16, lost part of his arm in a shark attack there, a little more than an hour after Kiersten Yow, 12, lost a portion of her arm below the elbow and suffered injuries to her leg.
Before he shot the video Monday, Phillips saw a local fisherman about 50 yards down the beach motioning for his teenage son to rush in from the surf right before a crowd of about 15 people gathered. Phillips said there was a lot of “oohing and ahhing” as the shark circled.
“The fisherman kept saying he’d never seen anything like this, especially coming right up to the sand,” Phillips said.
“Nobody else was in the water, so there wasn’t a need to be alarmed for safety,” he added. "I kept thinking about how my kids had just been in the water 30 seconds to a minute earlier."
Phillips and his family, from Chillicothe, Ohio, have vacationed at Ocean Isle for 30 years, but this time he and his wife have been more cautious about their children’s safety in the water, he said.
The high school Spanish teacher isn't allowing his 6- and 8-year-old children to use boogie boards because recent shark attack victims were on them during the attacks. He’s also limiting the amount of time his family goes in the water.
Phillips’ video -- posted to Facebook on Monday -- has more than 2.1 million views.
The Ocean Isle mayor’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
