- By Dan Veaner
- News
Print 
Ocean City, MD -- Lansing Justice John Howell has probably seen his share of legal sharks. But on a recent trip to Ocean City, MD with his wife Carol, he encountered a shark of a different kind. Or, if not a shark, some kind of hungry fish. "I was in the water out in front of Braemar, standing up, facing out to sea, watching for the next wave, when I felt the jaws and teeth of a fish on my right leg just above the thigh," Howell says. "This was the first ten minutes of the first morning of the first day of my vacation, (one in 8 million odds, I'm definitely playing the lottery this week!)."The attack occurred August 7th at about 10:15 in the morning. Howell had just gone into the water. Other swimmers were also enjoying the low tide, only 20 feet away from the Judge. Suddenly he felt pain, looked down and saw the head of a fish biting his leg. "I am used to nudging stuff at the beach -- crabs, jellyfish, etc. -- but this was different," he says. "Imagine 10 sharp pointed knives going into your leg"
Howell managed to pull away, hobbling to his towel on the beach, where he applied a spare towel to stop the bleeding. He told his wife he had been bitten and needed to get to a hospital. Nobody noticed that his leg was bleeding. Because they were about half way between life guard stations, they went directly to their condominium, where he cleaned the wound. Soon they were at the front desk where they got directions to a nearby clinic and warned the manager to alert the lifeguards of the danger. "Luckily there was an excellent clinic," Howell says. "Three hours later I was in much better shape."
By then he had 26 stitches closing the five inch high by 3 inch wide bite. Howell consulted world renowned fish experts at Cornell where he works for two of the biology departments. "I was hoping they would tell me this was not a shark," he says. "Maybe a bluefish or something else. But they keep coming back to the S.. word. They are guessing it was about 4 to 5 feet long."
"Thankfully I believe he was only tasting me," Howell says. "Obviously he could have taken a chunk of meat and didn't."
Howell says that he has been a beach lover since he was six years old, and that he and Carol have visited every major beach on the east coast from Maine to Miami. His leg is healing well, without infection, and he says the stitches will be removed next week. "We love Ocean City and have been going there since 1976 about every 3 years."
He also says this experience hasn't soured his taste for the beach. "I will go back in the water some day," he says. "We are actually planning a trip to Hawaii."
----
v3i32