A shark encounter closed a swatch of Newport Beach coast, but the woman who saw the shark says the closure could have been quicker. Photo: Gustavo Zambelli//Unsplash
An Orange County woman who had a shark encounter on Thursday, March 26, said lifeguards didn’t initially take her warnings seriously, and the beach remained open for long after the incident.
Vivian Phongngo told KTLA5 that after spotting a shark circling her 20 to 30 feet off shore, she went straight to lifeguards.
“People were swimming for a good 40 minutes to an hour (after my alert),” Phongngo said.
The Newport Beach Fire Department reported that the beaches were closed at 1:15 p.m. one mile north and south of Tower 32, and remained closed until 5:45 p.m. Boats were sent out to search for the shark, but it was never spotted again.
Newport Beach lifeguards refute that they delayed, and say that they “deemed the report a credible shark sighting.”
“(I’ve been going) to this beach my whole life with my friends, I’ve never seen anything bigger than a stingray,” Phongngo said. “I look over to my right foot, I see something, and it’s a fish. I was like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a really nice fish.’ And then it started circling me and getting bigger. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I think that’s a dolphin.’ And then, after three seconds, I was like, ‘No, that’s a shark.’”
The shark was believed to be an eight-foot juvenile great white.
“I saw the fin come up near my left arm,” she said.
Phongngo told KTLA5 that she’s not ready to get back in the ocean after getting shaken up by the incident.
“Got to respect Mother Nature,” she said.
