WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Marlin Wakeman, of Stuart, was working in the southern Bahamas getting stuff ready to return to sea with his employer in a Garlington 61 sport fishing vessel.
The 24-year-old surfer, diver, and fisherman faced a three-foot jump at the Flying Fish Marina in Long Island. He said the boat surged during low tide, he slipped off, and he fell into shark-infested waters.
“I will make the little jump and next thing you know I was in the water getting bit by a shark,” Wakeman said on Thursday during a news conference at St. Mary’s Medical Center, in West Palm Beach.
He had feared that fall before. Wakeman said people in the Bahamas treat the “apex predators” like “pets.” The Bahamas banned shark fishing and the sale of shark products in 2011. Wakeman said there are no limits to feeding the sharks at the marina.
“They have a filet table right there in the middle of the marina and whenever anyone goes out and kills a bunch of fish, they come back and they throw all their carcasses right there, and you could walk on their heads almost,” Wakeman said. “It’s a pretty crazy thing to see.”
After he fell into the “sharks’ den” at about 3:30 p.m., on April 26, a Caribbean reef shark — about 7 feet long — quickly bit Wakeman’s leg. He said he felt the pressure, as his head was underwater. He found his opportunity to swim back to the boat when the shark let go.
“I got really lucky, he didn’t head shake or hold on for a while, and then that’s when I was able to get back up to the surface, get my hand back on the boat,” Wakeman said. “That’s when the other one tried to bite me and then luckily he did not grab on to me and I was able to get myself back up into the boat.”
Wakeman said the contact with the second shark on his shoulder felt like a “punch” and he needed the force of a full push-up to get back into the boat. He walked to find his captain and asked him for help before he could lay down and lift his leg.
“Luckily it was me and not a young child or an elderly person,” Wakeman said about his ability to move away from the sharks while injured.
Wakeman said he didn’t panic and had an adrenaline rush. Wakeman’s father, Capt. Rufus Wakeman, and his mother, Melynda Wakeman, said they were very grateful to the boat’s owners and crew for helping their only son get medical attention.
“I was in and out of consciousness,” Marlin Wakeman said about the pain he felt until he passed out on the way to a clinic in the Bahamas.
A Bahamian doctor moved to control the pain and stop the bleeding. Wakeman said he was in shock, spent time with friends, and had his employer’s support to get to Florida the next day.
“Everything just couldn’t have fallen in a better place to be in such a bad place,” said Melynda Wakeman, a retired Jackson Memorial Hospital nurse. “We were blessed to have people there who did the right thing ... and the tourniquet ... I knew that we had to get him home to get his wounds cleaned.”
When the plane arrived, Rufus Wakeman was waiting for his son on the mainland about 15 minutes away from St. Mary’s Medical Center, in West Palm Beach, where a trauma surgeon was waiting to get the wounds reassessed and remanaged.
“It’s not often that a shark attack victim gets treated by a shark attack doctor,” Rufus Wakeman said about Dr. Robert Borrego’s specialty.
Borrego, a trauma surgeon, said he was concerned about the risk of infection, so he treated the wound to get “appropriate anti-microbial” coverage based on his prior research.
“He had a very large wound,” Borrego said, adding it was about 14 inches long and was right next to the artery.
Borrego said he was worried about Marlin Wakeman’s knee injuries, so he asked Dr. Rami Elkhechen, an orthopedic surgeon who was working nearby, for help.
“He was concerned about a disruption to the joint capsule, as well as possibly some bone injuries,” Elkhechen said.
The surgeons explored the wound to try to assess the damage and found a puncture wound to the capsule and the back of the kneecap. They washed the joint surface to prevent bacteria from eating the cartilage.
“One of the major complications would be bacteria getting inside the knee joint, and bacteria loves cartilage, and it could be a very serious, and devastating consequence, and so that’s why we take those types of injuries so seriously, especially in a young patient like Marlin,” Elkhechen said. “He has got many more years ahead of him ... he would end up with arthritis at an early age.”
Borrego said Marlin Wakeman was hospitalized for one night. Elkhechen said he suffered from a soft tissue injury from all the forces.
Rufus and Melynda Wakeman said they were also grateful to St. Mary’s Medical Center’s doctors for saving their son, who is expected to make a full recovery.
As an experienced boat captain, Rufus Wakeman agreed with his son’s comment about the need for Bahamian authorities to reduce risks and “readdress” the shark fishing ban.
“They need to maybe make some policy changes over there, not let people clean the fish in the marina ... put the bait, all of your carcasses in some buckets, and transport it to a different part of the island, or put it in a boat that’s going offshore tomorrow and dump out to sea,” Rufus Wakeman said, also adding, “Where people and sharks meet, generally it’s not a good outcome.”