posted June 26, 2005 06:11 PM              

"I've been here a long time and never seen a shark get that aggressive," surfer Tim Dicus said.

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DESTIN, Fla. (June 26) - Tim Dicus was surfing when he heard the scream. He turned and saw a girl swimming as fast as she could - and another one face down in a bloody circle of water.

Dicus, 54, paddled over to the wounded 14-year-old girl, who had been swimming on a boogie board about 100 yards offshore.

"Right next to her was the shark, about to come up and attack her again,'' Dicus said. He put the girl on his surf board and the shark - which appeared to be a bull shark about 8 feet long - went after her hand.

"He just followed us right to the beach,'' Dicus said. "He was determined to finish lunch. I hate to put it that way, but that was what he was trying to do.''

The girl was bitten on the thigh, and was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, said Walton County Sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Shank.

Speaking through tears, Wendy Daigle told The Associated Press on Sunday that the victim was her daughter, Jamie. The woman had no other comment. The Gonzales, La., girl was vacationing with friends.

Dicus said he punched the shark on the nose as it tried to attack him. Two other swimmers came with a raft, which they put the girl in and towed to shore.

Jeff White, 49, of Atlanta, said his son was in the raft.

"He said at one point, the shark was underneath them,'' White said. "So they stopped paddling. Somebody distracted the shark and they brought the girl the rest of the way in.''

AP

A shark swims Sunday in the waters of Mimamar Beach, Fla., less than a mile from where a 14-year-old girl was attacked a day earlier.

White said his son, Chris White, 23, told his father that "she probably may have already been gone before they got her to shore.''

The attack happened near the Camping on the Gulf Holiday Travel Park, about 45 miles east of Pensacola on the Florida Panhandle.

Patrick O'Neill, the campground's general manager, refused to comment.

Authorities closed about 20 miles of beaches to swimming shortly after the attack. It's the height of the summer tourism season along the coast and the beaches were packed with people.

"It was a bad attack,'' said George Burgess, curator of the International Shark Attack File located at University of Florida. "Certainly it was a reasonably large shark.''

Burgess, who was heading to the scene to investigate, said it was the first shark attack of any kind recorded in Walton County.

"It's not a renegade shark looking for humans,'' Burgess said. "Probably it was a one shot deal and it's not likely to attack again.''

Twelve-year-old Robert Goodwin, of St. Louis, Mo., said he was in the gulf during the attack and ordered out of the water. His father, Mark, said the family comes every year and "it was just an eerie feeling to see folks sitting there on the beach'' instead of swimming.

Florida had the largest number of documented shark attacks worldwide in 2003 with 30, according to statistics compiled by the American Elasmobranch Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History. There were 12 attacks off the coast of Florida last year.

06-26-05 14:07 EDT