STUART, Fla. — There was blood in the water, the sharks were circling and grievously hurt kite-surfer Stephen Schafer — his thigh gashed and his hand mauled — was screaming in pain by the time the lifeguard reached him.
Daniel Lund pulled Schafer onto his rescue board and frantically paddled him a quarter of a mile back to shore.
But Schafer (right), 38, died shortly afterward — marking the first deadly shark attack in Florida in five years, and perhaps a rare instance of a lethal attack by a swarm of sharks.
Lund spotted Schafer Wednesday as he scanned the Atlantic Ocean with binoculars from the beach about 100 miles north of Miami.
He said Schafer appeared to be in distress but wasn’t flailing around. Instead, he seemed to be floating on his kite board in the choppy water.
Lund paddled out, struggling through 6-foot waves. As he got close, he said, the normally turquoise-green ocean was red with blood, and he could see the shadows of perhaps two or three sharks circling Schafer, churning the crimson water, occasionally breaking the surface.
“The one thing he said is he’d been bitten by a shark,” the lifeguard said
Afraid the blood would set off a feeding frenzy, Lund, 47, cradled the man’s head and with one arm, began paddling back to shore as fast as he could, fighting the current and wind.
About 20 minutes later, they were on the beach with paramedics performing CPR on a badly bleeding Schafer. He died a short time later at a hospital.
Schafer, an artist and graphic designer with a lifelong love of the water, had a 10-inch gash in his right thigh and numerous teeth marks on his buttocks.
His right hand was mauled in an apparent attempt to fight off the animal — or animals.
Authorities are investigating what types of sharks were involved and whether more than one shark bit Schafer. Beaches remained open yesterday.
The International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida’s Museum of Natural History lists 1,032 documented shark attacks in the United States since 1690. Fifty of them were fatal.
The last fatal shark attack in Florida involved a 14-year-old girl off the Panhandle in 2005.