Long After the Shark Died, the Rumor Lived
Click.
That is how long it took, and how easy it was, to spread the rumor that shrouded an act of heroism. The truth was remarkable. In July, Jessie Arbogast, an 8-year-old boy from Ocean Springs, Miss., was attacked by a 7-foot, 200-pound bull shark in the shallows of the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola. The shark bit off Jessie’s arm and was still tearing at him when his uncle, Vance Flosenzier, waded up to the shark and grabbed its tail. He dragged the shark onto the sand, Jessie’s arm still in its gullet. Surgeons reattached the boy’s arm, but there was such tremendous blood loss that the boy slipped into a coma. Meanwhile, accounts of his uncle’s bravery ran all over the world, on front pages and on network news, a story of t… Continue ReadingSource: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/09/us/long-after-the-shark-died-the-rumor-lived.html