Friend recounts death of surfer in shark attack

LOS ANGELES - Matthew Garcia was surfing two feet away from his friend, who was bodyboarding, when he heard a desperate cry for help. Within seconds, a shark flashed out of the water, bit into his friend's leg and pulled him under in a cloud of blood off the coast north of Santa Barbara.

"When the shark hit him, he just said, 'Help me, dude!' He knew what was going on," Garcia told The Associated Press as he recounted his friend's death. "It was really fast. You just saw a red wave and this water is blue - as blue as it could ever be - and it was just red, the whole wave."

As huge waves broke over his head, Garcia tried to find Lucas Ransom in the surf but couldn't. He decided to get help, but turned around again as he was swimming to shore and saw Ransom's red bodyboard pop up. Garcia swam to his friend and did chest compressions as he brought him to shore.

The 19-year-old already appeared dead and his leg was mauled, Garcia said.

"He was just floating in the water. I flipped him over on his back and under-hooked his arms. I was pressing on his chest and doing rescue breathing in the water," Garcia, 20, said. "He was just kind of lifeless, just dead weight."

The University of California, Santa Barbara, junior had a severe wound to his left leg and died a short time later at Surf Beach, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

The beach, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, is on the property of Vandenberg Air Force Base but is open to the public.

Sheriff's deputies patrolled the coastline to search for Ransom's missing leg but were only able to recover the bodyboard, which had a 1-foot segment on the side bitten off.

Federal and state Fish and Game officials were working to identify the type of shark that attacked Ransom. A shark expert told the Los Angeles Times, based on its behavior and Ransom's injury, it most likely was a great white.

The shark, which breached the water on its side, appeared about 18 feet long, Garcia said.

"There was no sign, there was nothing. It was all very fast, very stealth," Garcia said.

The pair, best friends since they were on the water polo and swim teams together at Perris High School in Riverside County, had joked the night before about the chances they would be attacked by a shark, Garcia said.

Candace Ransomlast spoke to her son Friday morning, when he told her he was going to surf sets of 8- to 10-foot waves at a beach that was new to him. His mother encouraged him not to go in the water, she told the AP.

"I said, 'Honey, if they're so pretty why don't you just sit and watch them. You're at a place you've never been to before,"' Candace Ransom said. "He said, 'Mom, don't worry, I'll be fine and I'll call you when I finish up."

Authorities quickly closed Surf Beach and two other beaches nearby for at least 72 hours.