Shark Kills Surfer Off California Coast

Oct. 24, 2010— -- The shark that killed a 19-year-old trained lifeguard boogie boarding off the coast of Central California could have mistaken the young man for a seal or sea lion, a shark expert said.

Lucas Ransom was surfing Friday morning between 50 and 100 yards offshore at Surf Beach, which is in Vandenburg Air Force Base, north of Santa Barbara, when the shark reared up out of the waves, pulled him under and bit off his leg, witnesses said.

Because of recent storm weather, the water was murky and the shark could have mistaken Ransom for its normal prey, shark expert Ralph Collier told ABC Los Angeles station KABC-TV.

"That would be like you and I trying to see out of our windshield in our car in a heavy fog, and a young man in a boogie board could have replicated or represented a seal or sea lion to this shark," he said.

Ransom, who was a junior at University of California-Santa Barbara, majoring in Chemical Engineering, worked at a Murrieta, Calif., community pool as a lifeguard in 2007 and was honored by the city when he and two other lifeguards saved a young boy's life.

According to witness accounts, the shark that attacked him Friday gave him no chance to save his own life.

"When the shark hit him, he just said, 'Help me, dude!' He knew what was going on," Matthew Garcia, a friend who was surfing with Ransom, told The Associated Press. "It was really fast. You just saw a red wave and this water is blue, as blue as it could ever be, and it was just red, the whole wave."

Garcia, who told the The Associated Press he was just two feet away when the shark attacked, said he searched for Ransom's body but couldn't find his friend in the murky, bloody surf. Only after he started swimming for shore did he see Ransom's boogie board pop up, and then he saw his body.

He said he tried to revive Ransom as he brought him to shore.

"Apparently the friend of the victim saw his buddy go underwater for a brief period of time and then was able to bring his friend back to shore," Vandenburg spokesman Jeremy Eggers said.