Boy recovering after being bitten by shark in Hawaii

A 10-year-old boy was recovering from his injuries after being bitten by a shark he said “popped out of nowhere” off an Oahu beach.

The youth told reporters he kicked at the animal to make it go away.

The boy, who was bit at Makaha Beach Park, is doing well and should be out of the hospital soon, said Bruce Anderson with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Anderson said “all evidence, including eyewitness reports, points to this being a shark bite,” and officials are confirming that with the International Shark Database in Gainesville, Florida.

It’s Hawaii’s seventh confirmed shark encounter of 2015, state statistics show. The average number of shark bites per year has doubled over the past decade, but scientists say that’s because there are more people in the water, providing more opportunities for encounters.

There has been an average of about nine shark bites per year over the past five years.

“I was on the boogie board just waiting for a wave and then it just popped out of nowhere and then bit my leg,” the boy, Raymond Senensi, told reporters at The Queen’s Medical Centre in Honolulu.

He kicked the shark in the nose, but he wasn’t afraid, he said.

On Thursday, two surfers were in the water at Leftovers Beach Park on Oahu’s North Shore when a 10ft shark chased them from the water, Honolulu Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman Shayne Enright said. Leftovers is the same beach where another man lost his leg when a tiger shark bit him on Oahu’s North Shore in early October.