A shark off the Brazilian coast near Recife has reportedly killed a teenager.
The teenager, Geovane Messina, 15, died from a hemorrhage caused by the shark bite, according to report published this Wednesday by Recife's Institute of Forensic Medicine.
The teenager is said to have entered the water to save his drowning girlfriend, then got carried away by the waves. The boy was found dead with shark bites early the next morning.
Reports from both the State Committee for Monitoring of Incidents Sharks (Père) and the Civil Police are categorical in stating that the student wasa bitten while still alive. "The only way to reconcile the result of drowning is that he was drowning when he was bitten," said the president of Père, Fabio Hazin.
With the death of the teenager brings to 20 the number of deaths caused by shark attacks off Brazil's Pernambuco coast. Since 1992, there have been 50 attacks in the state.