By Jason Wilson, The Press of Atlantic City, Sunday, July 19, 1992

Lifeguard Alan O’Connor received a big scare from a big fish during his morning swim on Friday when he was attacked by an unidentified sea animal.

O’Connor, one of the beach patrol’s competitors in the South Jersey Lifeguard Championships, was on his morning training swim off the Lincoln Avenue beach around 8:30 a.m. when he was suddenly bitten in the leg.

“He took my foot in his mouth and then released it,” he said.

Fortunately, O’Connor was accompanied by Wildwood lifeguard Wayne MacMurry in a rowboat, so O’Connor was rescued within seconds.

“I was shocked,” O’Connor said. “I tried to get in the boat as fast as I could.”

The bite left him with a cut that needed fourteen stitches, but according to O’Connor there was no tendon damage.

He was rushed to Burdette Tomlin Hospital and released “within 40 minutes” according to Beach Patrol Captain John McCann. “It was lucky it wasn’t any more serious,” he said.

Authorites are still baffled over what type of animal made the attack. Neither O’Connor nor the guard in the boat were able to see what it was.

“We have no confirmation that it was or wasn’t a shark,” said McCann. McCann added that it could have been several types of animals, including possibly a porpoise, that attacked O’Connor.

“We do know, however, that it was not a bluefish,” he said.

© 1992 The Press of Atlantic City. Reproduced with permission.