A man was bitten by a bull shark after he hooked the animal while fishing near the jetties at Fort Pickens on June 5.
The fisherman was taken to the hospital by life flight with non-life-threatening injuries, according to emergency responders.
Escambia County Water Safety Chief Dave Greenwood said lifeguards, firefighters and EMS responded to the shark bite shortly before 6 p.m. Friday evening.
“He hooked a bull shark, and he landed on the beach and tried to take the hook out and got bit on the upper leg,” Greenwood said.
No other information is available on the man’s condition.
Escambia County Director of Communications and Public Information Kaycee Lagarde declined to provide public records of the incident with redacted medical information by deadline.
Three days after the incident another person in the Panama City area was taken to the hospital following a shark attack.
According to a Facebook post from Naval Support Activity Panama City, the shark encounter happened about 11:45 a.m. on June 8, at the academy’s MWR Marina.
NSA emergency service members responded to the scene and transported the individual to a local hospital.
Nothing was mentioned in the post about the victim’s status.
According to its website, NSA’s major tenants include “Naval Surface Warfare Center-Panama City Division, Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center, Navy Experimental Diving Unit and U.S. Coast Guard Station Panama City.”
The post said more details will be released as they become available.
Shark encounters extremely rare in Pensacola area
A total of six confirmed unprovoked shark attacks have been reported in Escambia County since tracking began in 1882.
While experts say Florida generally leads the United States in the total number of unprovoked shark bites, incidents in the Florida Panhandle are extremely rare compared to the Atlantic coast.
Most years pass without a single incident, and the historical bites that have occurred are rarely fatal.
There have been no fatal marine animal incidents in the county in recent years.
Escambia sees fewer than one bite per year on average.
On Aug. 2, 2025, an 8-foot bull shark bit a 28-year-old Milton man on his knee and thigh while he was spearfishing approximately 20 miles offshore from the Pensacola Pass.
In 2023, Escambia County recorded one unprovoked shark bite, according to the annual report released by the International Shark Attack File (ISAF).
The bite was non-fatal and considered minor to moderate, fitting the trend where the majority of Florida’s shark incidents are unprovoked interactions rather than life-threatening attacks.
“The risk of being bitten by a shark remains extremely low,” ISAF reported. “The total number of unprovoked shark bites worldwide remains extremely low. Fatalities saw an increase over the past year. Most of the fatalities in 2023 were due to white shark bites (three in Australia, one in California).”
ISAF said surfers and people participating in board sports accounted for 42% of incidents.
Swimmers and waders accounted for 39%, and snorkelers/free divers accounted for 13%.
Escambia County’s most infamous shark attack happened on July 6, 2001, when 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast was mauled by a 7-foot bull shark off the beach at Fort Pickens.
The attack severed his right arm and seriously injured his leg, leaving him with permanent brain damage due to blood loss.
The incident made worldwide headlines.
Three victims on same day in Walton County
In 2024, three confirmed shark bite incidents happened in Walton County—all on the same day—June 7, 2024.
At Watersound Beach, a 45-year-old woman lost her lower arm.
About four miles away, at Seacrest Beach/Inlet Beach, a shark attacked two teenage girls, aged 15 and 17.
Fifteen-year-old Lulu Gribbin, of Alabama, lost her left hand and right leg.
She has made a remarkable recovery and learned to use prosthetics.
She also launched the Lulu Strong Foundation to help other amputees and has advocated for “Lulu’s Law”—a system to alert beachgoers about nearby shark attacks in real time.
Despite the high-profile incidents, experts say it’s extremely rare for sharks to attack unprovoked and when they do bite, most do it to “explore” because humans are not normally on their menu.
“It’s amazing, given the billions of hours humans spend in the water, how uncommon attacks are,” said former ISAF Director George Burgess.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Two people injured by sharks in three days in Florida Panhandle
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY Network
