Tur­tle Beach/Cour­land Bay has been tem­porar­i­ly closed to the pub­lic af­ter a shark at­tack this morn­ing near the Starfish Ho­tel. The vic­tim, a 64-year-old British vis­i­tor, Pe­ter Smith, sus­tained se­vere in­juries to his left hand, left thigh, and stom­ach.

He was at­tacked by a bull shark ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10 me­ters away from the shore. The shark, es­ti­mat­ed to be be­tween 8 to 10 feet in length and 2 feet in width, caused se­vere in­juries to Smith, sev­er­ing his left hand from the el­bow down, sev­er­ing his left thigh, and re­sult­ing in a lac­er­a­tion to his stom­ach.

Smith is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing crit­i­cal care at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. 

The Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, in a so­cial me­dia post, said he spoke with the British High Com­mis­sion­er and the TT Coast Guard is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the area. 

As a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure, the pub­lic has been ad­vised that Tur­tle Beach/Cour­land Bay is tem­porar­i­ly closed off, and all bathing or beach ac­tiv­i­ties in the area are strict­ly pro­hib­it­ed at this time.