British man attacked by shark in Tobago hopes to return soon

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The British na­tion­al who sur­vived a shark at­tack while va­ca­tion­ing in To­ba­go ear­li­er this year, says he will hap­pi­ly re­turn to the is­land de­spite the fright­en­ing in­ci­dent.

Pe­ter Smith al­so ex­pressed his grat­i­tude to the peo­ple of To­ba­go for their kind­ness and the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port they of­fered him through­out his or­deal.  

Smith vis­it­ed To­ba­go in April with a group of 16 peo­ple, in­clud­ing his wife. He had spent time play­ing golf, swim­ming, and fish­ing around To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, on the last day of his trip to the is­land, on the morn­ing of Fri­day, April 26, Smith was at­tacked by a bull shark while tak­ing a fi­nal swim at Cour­land Bay. He was sched­uled to fly back to the UK lat­er that day.

The 64 year old, who was bit­ten on the leg and stom­ach, was list­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion af­ter be­ing tak­en to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

But speak­ing with a team of of­fi­cials from To­ba­go at the World Trav­el Mar­ket in Lon­don days ago, Smith, who re­ceived treat­ment to save his limbs, said he was grate­ful.

“I have to thank all of the doc­tors and the nurs­es in To­ba­go hos­pi­tals who re­al­ly saved my life,” he said.

He said he was thank­ful for the care he re­ceived not on­ly from the med­ical staff but al­so from the peo­ple of To­ba­go, who went out of their way to look af­ter his fam­i­ly dur­ing his re­cov­ery.

“I would al­so have to thank all of the peo­ple, be­cause the peo­ple were re­al­ly kind to my fam­i­ly. Whilst they were there, I couldn’t do any­thing, but they looked af­ter my fam­i­ly re­al­ly, re­al­ly well,” he added.

Af­ter hours in surgery, Smith was flown to Mi­a­mi, where he spent five more weeks in the hos­pi­tal.

De­spite the trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence, Smith said he was still fond of To­ba­go.

He de­scribed the is­land as beau­ti­ful and its peo­ple as kind and sup­port­ive. He said he hoped to re­turn soon.

“I re­al­ly do like To­ba­go, de­spite what hap­pened. I thought it was a beau­ti­ful place with re­al­ly nice peo­ple and would I go back again,” Smith said.

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the shark at­tack, ten beach­es across To­ba­go were closed af­ter pan­icked bathers and fish­er­men re­port­ed sight­ings of the bull shark.

There was al­so a $10,000 boun­ty placed on the head of the shark that at­tacked Smith by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly; how­ev­er, it was lat­er re­tract­ed that very same day.