A surfer watched in shock as a huge shark suddenly surfaced just feet away and snatched a friend off a boogie board and dragged him to his death, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
Lucas Ransom, 19, died of massive injuries in the shark attack Friday about 100 yards (meters) off a beach near Santa Barbara, California.
"It was very stealth," Ransom's friend Matthew Garcia, who was on a surfboard several feet away, told the Times. "You would have never known there was a shark in the water. It was all really quick."
He said Ransom looked over and said "Help me dude," before being dragged under.
Witnesses told police the shark was between 14 to 20 feet (four to six meters) in length.
Authorities closed beaches for 72 hours after the attack.
Ransom "was boogie boarding on the break line about 100 yards (meters) off the beach with his friend when a shark suddenly pulled Ransom under the water," the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.
"Ransom suffered a massive wound to his left leg and appeared to die shortly thereafter," the office said.
The Times said Garcia tried to give his buddy chest compressions as he pulled him to safety, but Ransom bled to death before they reached the shore.
The attack occurred at Surf Beach at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) near Santa Barbara, which is some 130 miles (215 kilometers) up the Pacific coast from Los Angeles.
A police photograph showed a 14-inch (35-centimeter) bite in Ransom's boogie board.
Fish and game officials were working to identify the type of shark.
A shark expert told the Times that the culprit was most likely a great white, based on the behavior of the shark and on Ransom's injury.
Candace Ransom told the Times her son Lucas, a student at the University of California Santa Barbara, was a fearless athlete with "the sweetest heart."
The last such fatality involved a great white shark in California in 2008, when a 66-year-old man was attacked as he swam with friends off a San Diego beach.
Marine wildlife experts say humans are not favored prey for sharks, although they sometimes mistake people for seals and sea lions when swimmers wear a wetsuit and fins or lie on a surfboard or boogie board.
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