How many shark attacks have there been in SLO County? A look at notable run-ins
People spend a lot of time thinking about sharks, probably too much.
There have only been three fatal shark attacks recorded in San Luis Obispo County history since 1956. Crossing the street is statically more dangerous. We have more pedestrian injuries and fatalities in a year than with sharks over eight decades.
Sadly, a swimmer was killed in a shark attack Dec. 21, 2025, one county north, off of Lovers Point in Monterey County bringing attention to sharks again.
This list is a work in progress, but at the moment The Tribune has documented 18 major shark incidents along San Luis Obispo dating back to 1956.
Here’s what we know about each.
Aug. 14, 1956: Pismo Beach
Douglas Clark, 10, suffered severe lacerations to the right shoulder, hand and abdomen with possible severance of muscles in the right arm.
Clark was swimming south of the Pier in deep water when he was overturned by a 9-foot-long shark at 5 p.m.
He was rescued by Linda Weston who was floating nearby on an air mattress. Prior to the incident two sharks had been seen in the area.
April 28, 1957: Morro Bay
Peter Savino, 25, was killed in what was called the first tragedy of its kind.
The Cal Poly student was swimming a mile north of the rock with a fellow student Daniel Hogan.
They were caught in a riptide 300 yards offshore. A tired Savino was hanging onto the shoulder of Hogan and as they swam back, there was a sudden swirl of water and Savino was pulled under a wave. When he surfaced, his arm was bloody, and he yelled, “Something really big hit me.”
The shark hit Savino again and both men struggled to swim to shore. Later when Hogan looked back, Savino was gone. His body was never found.
Campus historians are still trying to locate a picture of Savino.
July 24, 1982: Montaña de Oro State Park
Casmir Pulaski, 26, and friend Terry Schubert, 29, were perched on fiberglass surfboards singing Harry Belafonte tunes near Point Buchon at 11 am.
Pulaski thought he hit a rock coming off a swell, but his board shot up at a 45-degree angle. He was eye-to-eye with a shark. The Cayucos lifeguard was knocked into the water as the shark chomped the board. Rather than swim back to shore in open water he chose to retrieve his board.
“I sort of swam toward the shark and gave him a whack with my hand. It didn’t do a lot of good.”
Seconds later he had his board back and paddled to shore.
“I probably would have lost a leg if he had bitten one foot lower. It was totally up to the shark.”
The episode lasted, “at the most 10 seconds.”
The white shark was later estimated by State Fish and Game officials to be 19 feet long and weighing 2 tons.
Aug. 29, 1982: Morro Bay
John Buchanan, 17, thought a friend had grabbed his board while surfing 100 yards north of Morro Rock at 10:30 a.m. when he was jolted by an animal, grayish-brown with round dish shaped head and smooth skin.
The attack left gashes in the board and later examination by a Department of Fish and Game biologist determined it was most likely a great white shark, though initially it was thought by officials to be a seal.
Buchanan was not sure. He rolled off the other side of the board and body surfed to shore while the animal held fast to the red and black surfboard.
April 24, 1988: Morro Bay
Mark Rudy was returning to shore in waist-deep water north of Morro Rock when something grabbed him just above the knee and knocked him over.
The Cal Poly student was treated at the campus health center for two gashes in the leg, one requiring stitches.
State Fish and Game later determined it was a shark that shredded Rudy’s wetsuit above the knee, though there was not enough information to determine the type.
Dr. Bob Lea who investigated the incident for the agency noted that it was not necessarily the result of aggressive behavior but “it’s quite possible he accidentally startled the thing.”
Aug. 19. 2003: Avila Beach
Debbie Franzman, 50, was a strong and proficient ocean swimmer who swam in Avila Beach almost daily.
She was alone among sea lions about 75 yards from shore. She was in view of beachgoers when a 15-to-18-foot white shark came up from below and tore the tissue of her thigh, severing her left femoral artery.
It was a grave injury that would have required medical intervention within a minute.
Four lifeguards training on the beach swam out to rescue Franzman, but despite their heroic efforts, she was pronounced dead at the scene. Fifteen other lifeguards had been swimming in another area at the same time. The beach was closed to swimmers for nearly two weeks as half-eaten sea lion carcasses washed up on Avila Beach.
A scholarship in Franzman’s memory was established at Allan Hancock College where she was a sociology instructor.
Oct. 2, 2004: Pismo Beach
Ben Ikola, 16, was lying flat on his stomach paddling about 3:30 pm, 75 yards offshore, south of the Pier when he felt his board shaking.
He was knocked into the water and saw a dorsal fin about a foot-and-a-half long. He yelled to others in the water, “Shark! Get out!”
“I jumped back on my board and started paddling like crazy back to the shore,” Ikola told The Tribune.
His board showed four bite marks and researchers from Palegic Shark Research Foundation estimated it to be a 12-foot great white shark.
June 21, 2009: Pismo Beach
A man, age 26, suffered a bite to the foot while surfing at the Shell Beach, Silver Shoals location. Information was limited as calls were not returned.
Story was based on an emergency radio calls at deadline.
July 2, 2010: Pismo Beach
Derek Crane, 19, was bitten on the left foot while surfing about 6:50 pm at Shell Beach, Silver Shoals.
He described a 4-foot brown shark with spots later identified as a leopard shark.
A friend drove him to the hospital where he was treated.
May 12, 2012: Cambria
Joey Nocchi, 30, and two friends were kayak fishing off Leffingwell Landing.
They had almost caught their limit of rock cod. Nocchi was reaching for his knife when, “I got hit from underneath and started coming up out of the water.”
“My buddies said I came out of the water 4 to 5 feet — it flipped me over the side,” he said. “The shark rolled the whole kayak over, rolled me out of it, and he went over the top of it. He swam across me — his tail touched me.”
His friends estimated the shark was 12 feet to 14 feet long. Nocchi’s buddies told him “the shark came all the way out of the water, jaws open, extra eyelids closed like they do when they’re making a kill strike.”
“I swam back as fast as I could and got back on the back of the kayak,” he said. “I didn’t even think to turn it back over. I got back to shore as fast as I could, even though the kayak was taking on a bunch of water from the bite. The bite looks to be around 20 inches long, more than 22 inches wide.”
July 5, 2014: Oceano Dunes State Beach
Ron Johnson reported his board was violently struck by an estimated 8- to 9-foot shark that raised him up in the air and knocked him off his board, according to sharkresearchcommittee.com.
Johnson said he hoisted himself back on his board and headed for shore, uninjured.
Dec. 28, 2014: Montaña de Oro State Park
Kevin Swanson, 50, was surfing at Sandspit Beach when his right hip and thigh were torn open by the bite of an 8 to 10-foot-long great white.
The shark dragged him underwater before he was able to escape.
Once he got ashore, he used his surfboard leash to fashion a tourniquet for his leg and got help from two doctors who happened to be on the beach at the time.
He told The Tribune: “My main concern then was getting to the beach, stopping the bleeding and getting help.”
Aug. 29, 2015: Morro Strand State Beach
Elinor Dempsey had not yet caught a wave when she saw a shark approach her red surfboard about 10:15 from about 2 feet underwater.
“First I thought it was a dolphin and I thought, ‘What the hell is he doing?’” she said. “And he kind of landed on my board. Then I realized he had taken a chunk. And I was, like, that’s not what dolphins do.”
A neighboring surfer saw her tumble off the board in a tangle of board, leash and shark. Surfers yelled to get out of the water.
“That was the freaky part,” Dempsey said, “when I started swimming in and not knowing what was going on behind me in the water. I wasn’t thinking much, except, ‘Shit, I better get in!’”
Her board had a 13 1/2 inch wide and 8 inch deep bite taken out of it and beachgoers gathered to take photos.
Oct. 13, 2015: Cambria
Jordan Pavacich was fishing with friends in his Hobie pedal kayak about 2 miles out from Leffingwell Landing.
About 11 a.m. he came back to shore, stopping about 100 yards outside a kelp bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dorsal fin coming toward the left rear side of the kayak. This hit jolted the kayak sideways a foot, and he thought “Holy smokes, it’s a hammerhead.”
It went under the kayak, went under again and then hit again in the middle of the craft under his feet.
“I started pedaling, really fast, at about 4.5 mph, according to my GPS, which is really fast on a kayak,” he said. He also yelled “Hammerhead!” into the radio, to notify his two friends about the danger. Pavacich guessed that the shark may have smelled the fish catch in the scuppers, or holding area.
Jan. 8, 2019: Montaña de Oro State Park
Nick Wapner, 19, had been surfing with friends for about an hour when it happened.
At about 10 a.m. a great white shark came up beneath him as he paddled into position for a set.
“It all happened quickly, but I turned and saw that it had one of my legs in its mouth,” Wapner said.
The shark bit down on the lower part of his legs around his ankles, and then up to his thighs. In a skirmish that he estimates lasted a few seconds — though his mind was racing, and it was hard to say exactly — Wapner kicked the shark hard in the head and wrangled himself free.
He estimated the shark to be 15 feet in length.
Wapner believed the shark was biting out of curiosity and realized the object in its mouth wasn’t the taste it was looking for.
Wapner got back to shore as quickly as possible and a friend drove him to Sierra Vista Hospital where he received 50 stitches.
The Cal Poly student planned to return to surfing after recovery.
“I don’t hate sharks now or anything,” Wapner said. “We are in their home when we’re out there in the ocean. Sharks are part of the natural environment, and they help maintain a healthy ocean environment.”
Oct. 25, 2019: Cambria
David Zamora was fishing from a kayak two miles off of Leffingwell Landing with a friend when a 10 foot shark bit into his kayak and flipped it.
He told KSBY, “It just happened so quickly and my first instinct was get back on. I don’t want to leave no limbs hanging just in case he’s coming for seconds, you know. Just get back on the yak was the main thing,” Zamora said.
A piece of shark’s tooth was embedded in the kayak.
Dec. 24, 2021: Morro Bay
Thomas Butterfield, 42, was killed boogie boarding the Pit just north of Morro Rock.
His body was discovered by another surfer at 10:39 a.m., suspended under the surface still connected to the leash, after Butterfield had left his mother’s Morro Bay home at 10. Surfers pulled him from the water but responding medical personnel confirmed his death at the scene.
An autopsy report released after a public records request confirmed that a DNA sample confirmed a great white shark and that Butterfield had suffered a series of blunt force trauma.
Family said Butterfield loved the ocean, especially fishing and boogie-boarding.
This story was originally published January 3, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
