“Jaws” helped shape the global perception of great white sharks, but it shaped it all wrong. Photo: Unsplash
California just had its first shark attack of 2026. As USA Today reports, a Northern California surfer experienced a traumatic shark encounter in which an ocean predator tossed him in the air, then left him with stitches in his upper thigh and half a board missing.
The attack occurred just north of the Gualala River, 115 miles north of San Francisco in Mendocino county. Emergency crews responded at 8:45 a.m. to calls about a person in distress in the water.
According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the surfer was 26-year-old Tommy Civik. A bystander told the Chronicle they saw Civik get “thrown into the air by the shark” and have his board broken in half. However, by the time emergency crews arrived, he had managed to get himself back to shore. Civik transported himself to the hospital, where he received multiple stitches to his upper leg.
“It was like being hit by a car,” Civik told SFGATE. “All of a sudden, I was shot out of the water.”
The incident took place just a few weeks after a woman was killed by a shark in Pacific Grove, about 230 miles south of Gualala. Triathlete Erica Fox was swimming at Lovers Point in Pacific Grove, California, when she went missing. A week later, her body was found and the cause of death confirmed to be a shark attack.
