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Shark attack kills 19-year-old UCSB student

A 14-20-foot-long shark bit off the left leg of Lucas McKaine Ransom, 19, of Romoland, California today while he was Boogie Boarding with a 20-year-old friend about 100-150 yards off Surf Beach at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Ransom was a junior in chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Authorities have released photos of the 13-inch shark bite taken out of the Boogie Board.

The shark attack this morning pulled Ransom under the water. His friend and other witnesses pulled him to shore. Air base fire personnel pronounced Ransom dead at the scene.

Officials closed Surf Beach, which is open to the public, and two other beaches that are open only to military personnel, at 9:46 AM, shortly after the shark attack. The beaches will remain closed for 72 hours. The Santa Barbara County Parks Department is posting warning signs at the Jalama and Guadalupe beach areas.

(Note added October 25, 2010: The Santa Barbara County coroner’s officials, after conferring with a shark expert, today identified the shark that killed Lucas Ransom as a great white measuring 17 to 18 feet and weighing about 4,ooo pounds (1814 kg). Ralph Collier, president of the Shark Research Committee, made the determination based on Ransom’s wound, the size of the bite out of his bodyboard, and a fragment of a shark’s tooth that was recovered. Collier is a shark expert and has authored “Shark Attacks of the 20th Century.” Collier stated that there have been only 12 authenticated fatal shark attacks along the West Coast since the 1950s. Ransom’s family is planning a memorial and an ocean paddle-out on Thursday. The LA Times states:

“A 10 a.m. memorial will be held at Evans-Brown Mortuary, 27010 Encanto Drive in Sun City, just south of the family’s home in Romoland in Riverside County.

At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, friends and family will gather on the south side of Oceanside Pier in Oceanside before paddling out on surfboards into the Pacific Ocean, where they will scatter flowers to honor Ransom, said his brother, Travis Ransom.”

The friends of Lucas Ransom at UC Santa Barbara, where my own daughter earned her bachelor’s, are planning a candlelight vigil at 8 PM Tuesday at Del Playa Park near the campus, and a scholarship is also in the works.

We at Cheshire Cat Photo extend our sympathies to the friends and family.)

-Bill at

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©2010 William F. Hackett. All Rights Reserved.

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