TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
Pelican Slams Into The Face Of Swimmer
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Published: May 10, 2008
Updated: 05/10/2008 12:44 am
TAMPA - Maybe she'd get stung by a jellyfish. Maybe she'd be attacked by a shark.
Debbie Shoemaker kept those scenarios in the back of her mind Thursday as she swam in the Gulf of Mexico off Treasure Island. Then, out of nowhere, a swooping pelican rammed into her face and ripped through her cheek with its footlong beak.
"I immediately put my hand on my face and blood was gushing out," said Shoemaker, 50, a housecleaner from Toledo, Ohio, who was vacationing in the Bay area this week.
She needed 25 stitches. She is on painkillers and antibiotics and cannot eat solid food; emergency responders and fire rescue officials told her it was the first pelican incident of its kind in the area.
"I don't think in the 33 years I've been here I've seen anything like that," said St. Pete Beach Fire Rescue Chief Fred Golliner.
Pelicans, which typically weigh about 6 pounds and are known for their distinctive long bills and droopy pouches, do not attack humans. They dive straight down, beak first, when they're going after a fish, said Anita Pinder, director of development at Sanibel Island's Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife, which works a lot with pelicans.
"He either saw a fish and went for it or mistook her for a fish. I think the former is much more likely," Pinder said.
The most a pelican might do is angrily snap its beak if a person gets too close or harasses it, she said.
"The person had nothing to do with it; she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time because they pelicans clearly do not attack," she said.
The pelican died on impact, witnesses told Shoemaker, who was whisked to shore by four good Samaritans.
She stanched the blood with her beach towel and went to Palms of Pasadena Hospital in St. Petersburg for treatment, which included a consultation with a plastic surgeon.
The gash on her left cheek is 3 inches long, Shoemaker said by telephone from her home in Toledo. Doctors told her they were concerned about the accident's impact on her salivary glands and the tiny bones that help her smile, she said.
She left on the first flight out Friday morning, cutting her vacation short by three days. She consulted her local doctor in Ohio on Friday afternoon.
"It was just like I got punched in the face, like, really super hard. You can imagine; they travel pretty fast - and having that come right at you," she said.
Shoemaker loves to travel alone. She wakes when she wants to, hits the beach when she feels like it. She usually comes to Florida twice a year and often visits with her friend, Barbara Hatcher, 50, of Tampa, whom she has known since the second grade.
Hatcher spent the night at Shoemaker's hotel room Thursday because Shoemaker was too spooked to be by herself.
"I would have never dreamed to be aware of something like this," Shoemaker said.
She doesn't think she'll travel alone anytime soon. Too many things can happen, she said.
Someday, she'll come back to Florida, though.
"I might just basically stay in the pool," she said.
Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (813) 259-7616 or nwhite1@tampatrib.com.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( grandmaheart07 ) on May 10, 2008 at 12:42 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
twinboys,i hope your grandmother will be ok.i am a grandmother and i know that she will come back to see you guys.God bless
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