Shark Attack Victim's Friend Recounts Horror Off Wellfleet
WELLFLEET (CBS) – A friend of the young man killed by a shark off Cape Cod said he rushed to help him, but it was too late.
Isaac Rocha was with 26-year-old Arthur Medici of Revere when a shark attacked Medici while he was boogie boarding about 40 yards off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet Saturday.
"I just saw him go down under the water and he popped back up really quick and I saw a lot of blood in the water already and he was screaming," Rocha told CBS This Morning.
"And then I saw like a shark tail or something like a part of a shark and I swam to him as fast as I could in that moment and I got to him, I dragged him back to shore about 35-to-40 yards. When I got to shore I was exhausted. I couldn't bring him more up the shore. I fell down and I was still carrying him. I got a boogie board strap and I tied it around his thigh to try to stop the bleeding."
The shark had bitten both of Medici's legs. Others came to help and performed CPR before an ambulance came and rushed him to Cape Cod Hospital, where he died.
Medici was a part-time engineering student at Bunker Hill Community College and was engaged to be married.
A GoFundMe page set up by family and friends to cover funeral costs had raised more than $25,000 as of Monday morning.
Medici is first person killed by a shark off the Massachusetts coast in more than 80 years. This was the second shark attack on the Cape this summer.
