Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Shark vic­tim Pe­ter Smith is on the road to re­cov­ery af­ter un­der­go­ing mul­ti­ple surg­eries at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal since Fri­day.

Last evening, Smith, 64, was in a sta­ble con­di­tion, af­ter he un­der­went a blood trans­fu­sion, doc­tors saved his limbs and his wounds were closed and treat­ed.

The surg­eries last­ed a lit­tle over three hours on Fri­day, sources told Guardian Me­dia. The sur­gi­cal team is, how­ev­er, now prepar­ing to de­ter­mine the next step in his treat­ment.

Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion Faith B.Yis­rael yes­ter­day said re­ports from the med­ical team con­firmed Smith’s ap­pendages have so far been pre­served and a com­pre­hen­sive sta­tus re­port will be pro­vid­ed soon. She said the med­ical team at the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty is in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the fam­i­ly to de­ter­mine the best way for­ward.

Smith sus­tained se­vere in­juries to his left hand, left thigh, and stom­ach af­ter a bull shark at­tacked him while he was bathing at Cour­land Bay, al­so known as Tur­tle Beach, on Fri­day.

Smith, a guest from the UK at the Starfish Re­sort, was 10 me­ters away from the shore when he was at­tacked. The shark, es­ti­mat­ed to be be­tween eight to ten feet in length and two feet in width, caused se­vere in­juries to Smith, sev­er­ing his left hand from the el­bow down, sev­er­ing his left thigh, and lac­er­at­ing his stom­ach.

Beach­es in To­ba­go re­mained re­strict­ed yes­ter­day, as the search for the bull shark in­volved in the at­tack con­tin­ued.

Store Bay beach was a ghost town. This beach was among ten —be­tween Ply­mouth to Crown Point— re­strict­ed as of­fi­cials from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard and oth­er stake­hold­ers worked to lo­cate the shark.

De­spite yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent, UK vis­i­tor Hitesh Pu­jara didn’t think there was a shark threat in To­ba­go.

“It’s fan­tas­tic and I rec­om­mend every­one come here. Don’t wor­ry, the sharks aren’t go­ing to eat us, they might, but don’t wor­ry about it, faith is there,” he said dur­ing a vis­it to Store Bay

He ap­plaud­ed the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly for tak­ing the nec­es­sary ac­tion to pro­tect those on the is­land.

“There has been an im­pact not on­ly on me but all the vis­i­tors to the is­land. The gov­ern­ment, right­ful­ly, has tak­en some sen­si­ble pre­cau­tions to shut down the beach­es to pro­tect us.”

Store Bay life­guard Er­rol Cato told Guardian Me­dia this was the first time he’d heard of such a grue­some shark at­tack.

“Some peo­ple were re­luc­tant to come out of the wa­ter. It wasn’t un­til we let them know there was a shark at­tack. You know any­thing with shark peo­ple are afraid,” he said of their ef­forts on Fri­day to en­sure beach­go­ers were safe.

An­oth­er first-time vis­i­tor from Trinidad, Anil Ram­sa­roop, said he was dis­ap­point­ed he couldn’t en­joy the pris­tine wa­ters but he said he un­der­stood the threat.

“I was very dis­ap­point­ed when we reach in To­ba­go be­cause I couldn’t bathe in the beach­es be­cause it’s so gor­geous and beau­ti­fy. I’m dis­ap­point­ed but I don’t have a choice.”

Mean­while, sev­er­al British me­dia out­lets re­port­ed on the at­tack yes­ter­day.

In an on­line ar­ti­cle, The Stan­dard re­port­ed that Smith, a fa­ther of two from Berkham­st­ed, Hert­ford­shire, was be­ing com­fort­ed by his wife, Joan­na, 62, who has been at his side at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal since the at­tack.

The re­port said Smith, a re­tired IT work­er, had been hol­i­day­ing on the is­land with his wife and friends and was due to fly home on the day he was at­tacked.

It quot­ed Ori­on Jakerov, a wa­ter sports man­ag­er at the Starfish Ho­tel where Smith was stay­ing, say­ing peo­ple with Smith tried to fight off the shark and that “no­body saw it com­ing”.

Briton Stephanie Wright, from West Sus­sex, who was with Smith, re­called what she saw, “I orig­i­nal­ly thought the gen­tle­man had had a car­diac ar­rest and I thought they were help­ing him. I saw some­one run­ning down with a tow­el and then I saw a dor­sal fin come out of the wa­ter and thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s a shark.’ As it turned, I saw the tail come out as well as it swam off.”