A young German tourist died yesterday evening on board a Spanish Air Force helicopter that was en route to hospital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, after being attacked by a shark in the Atlantic Ocean, 514 kilometres off the coast of the Canary Islands and 180 kilometres from the nearest city in Africa. The 30-year-old was on a cruise on a British-flagged catamaran, the Dalliance Chichester.
The shark tore off her leg and that of her fellow seafarers, called the Spanish Maritime Rescue, which shares international rescue responsibilities in the area with the Moroccan Navy. The maritime rescue service immediately alerted all nearby ships, one of which approached and provided medication to the crew.
But to save the injured woman, whose leg was amputated by the shark, a Gran Canaria Air Force helicopter arrived too late. The boat she was on left the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria heading south on September 14, according to the route recorded by navigators monitoring maritime traffic.
According to the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Incident Registry, only six shark attacks have been confirmed in history in the Canary Islands, but none have been fatal so far.
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