A teenage boy was savagely attacked by a shark while swimming alone off the coast of Jamaica this week, decapitating him and severing his arm. Shark attacks in Jamaica are extremely rare, and the killing marks only the fourth such incident in nearly 300 years.
Jahmari Reid, 16, had been on a spearfishing expedition by himself near the popular tourist town of Montego Bay when he went missing. On Tuesday morning, while recovering the boy's decapitated body and severed arm, divers spotted a tiger shark in the vicinity that they believe may have been responsible for the attack. Although the divers attempted to kill the animal, it managed to evade them.
"All of the fisherman went out there and, while they were diving to take him up, they saw the big shark. They shot at him but they didn’t get him," Christopher Reynolds, one of the fishers at the scene, told the Jamaica Observer. Reynolds said that he hopes the shark is located and killed so that the severed head can be recovered.
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Michael Reid, the teen's grieving father, said that he had often tried to discourage his son's spearfishing hobby. "It is something that we argue about, we fight about. He’s not doing it for a worthy cause, he’s not doing it for needs or anything," said Reid, a taxi operator. "It is what it is still. Can you believe it?"
"I can’t believe that he went to sea by himself yesterday and that was the outcome," Reid lamented. "Sad to know. I feel so bad."
Given the rarity of shark attacks in Jamaica, Fritz Christie, president of Falmouth Fisherfolks Benevolent Society, said that it's possible the shark followed a cruise ship into the waters of Falmouth.
"It look like when one of the ship come in a big shark follow the ship come in and it look like when the ship leave the shark did not leave the area," he explained. "And the youth go out and he was attacked by the shark. It bit off his head."
Christie noted that spearfishers should exercise extreme caution when out in the waters after a cruise ship comes into the Falmouth port. "What we have to do is make certain when the ships come to be careful of the diving. The shark eat off the man head, eat off one of his hand. It’s crazy, man,” Christie added.
Authorities in Falmouth are currently investigating the incident. According to the International Shark Attack File, only three unprovoked shark attacks have been reported in Jamaica since 1749.
