How Swimmer Survived Newport Beach Shark Attack (VIDEO)

Well, previous attack victims have survived by punching back twice as hard.

That's always good advice, in the water and in real life.

At the O.C. Register, "Shark attack survivor: Woman suffered one big bite across her body, a punctured lung and broken ribs":

She had wounds in a half circle across her torso, teeth marks from her upper right shoulder in the back to her pelvis in front and to the other side of her buttocks in the back.

Several ribs were fractured. A lung was punctured. She lost no less than a liter of blood. Doctors looked for teeth that might’ve still been in her body.

Maria Korcsmaros, a 52-year-old triathlete and mother of three, survived a shark attack Sunday in Corona del Mar.

She lived only because of her own quick thinking, strong work from a pair of Newport Beach lifeguards who luckily were close at hand, and medical experts who responded well to a trauma none had seen first-hand.

“It was life before limb,” said Dr. Philip Rotter, director of orthopedic trauma and chairman of orthopedics at Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana.

Details of the attack emerged Tuesday as Rotter and other experts offered an inside look at what the swimmer endured Sunday and how she was treated.

They talked about how lifeguards pulled her from the water and treated her appropriately, and how emergency physicians and others later had to spring into action to treat a woman who had a tourniquet wrapped around her arm to slow the flow of blood spilling from her body.

Based on the description of the wound, local shark expert Chris Lowe, who runs The Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach, thinks the shark was an adult, likely more than 10 feet long.

“I can tell you that’s probably not a pup.”

As medical experts discussed the events that saved Korcsmaros, Newport Beach lifeguards on Tuesday re-opened beaches between Balboa Pier and the Wedge, a stretch of water closed to swimmers since the attack. Swimmers returned to the water around noon, after lifeguards had looked into the ocean from boats and from overhead, in a helicopter, to see if any sharks remain in the area.

Corona del Mar, where the attack occurred, was opened back up Wednesday morning.

Lifeguards also described what happened during the human-vs. shark rescue...

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