There’s no comparison for Kimberly Bishop. The 65-year-old, who survived the deadliest shooting in U.S. history in October of 2017 at the Route 91 Harvest music festival when a gunman opened up on concert-goers, killing 58, says Las Vegas was much more traumatic than surviving a recent shark attack on the Big Island. Bishop was paddling a kayak with her husband, who was on a SUP, on Anaehoomalu Bay, near Waikoloa when the shark hit her kayak, knocking her in the water. The big fish then bit into her leg, leaving a nasty wound that required evacuation and emergency surgery (70 staples and 50 stitches).
“I felt something like a truck hit my kayak and flip it over completely. I flipped over toward whatever had hit me, and immediately felt a chomp on my leg,” she said. Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources thought it was a black tip reef shark. A local canoe team helped with the rescue before she was airlifted via helicopter to a nearby hospital.
Despite a rough two-year stretch, Bishop’s attitude is remarkably positive and the Southern California-resident won’t let the run-in keep her out of the water. “This experience of the shark bite thing, I mean it was an interesting story… but it’s not nearly the same kind of trauma as Route 91. Thankfully, my daughter, my friend and I were not injured. But I shout out to the Route 91 family, because some of them are still going through some real trauma,” she said.
