Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1898-10-19
eATTlE OF DIVER AND SHARK.
conhat oe the Sea Resulting In Deao
Fish and Bruised Man.

comhat oe the Sea Resulting In Deao
Fish and Bruised Man.
Andrew Cameron, a solid Scotch lad
with red face and red hair. reached por'
the other day on the Ward line steamer
Yucatan from Vera Cruz, Mexico,
bringing with him the story OF hSn'
with q shark. says the New York sun.
Cameron y Q de@p water diver, ana
says he has gone to greater depths tnan
any other diver In the business. his
story Is coeroborated by J. w. Field
an engineer In the service OF Pearson
q Son. the contractors, who are re-
building the basin where Cameron was
employed.
Three months ago Cameron was sen.
to Vera Cruz to work in the basin, ouiit
out from the main entrance to the port
He had thnee mep to assist him. ons
Of them q Mexican named King. Tne
men worked ON q foat, with q ladder
running down from 1t into the water.
Cameron was clad IN the regulation suit
Of armof worn by deep water divers
He had been working for two monshs
and q hah wttheut any accident. Dur
ing his frequent deseeuts he had dis
cerned At times the outlines Of aoghsh
or young shsrks, but these never both
cred htm.
At sbout $50 o'cleek en- the morning
Of Oct 16 he went eighty feet below
the surface. Besides his tools he had
. dirk sighteen inches lang and two
and one-hah hches wide in the belt
Of his rubber suit.
II had located a loose pile and had
started In to tighten up the bolts, which
had worked out" be remarked, wien
I wa1 conscious Of something passing
ovef me and obscuring the light.
leaned back and saw a shark fully ten
feet long, apparently about to attack
me. He was moving around not more
than a faet above my helmet. dropped
the wrench which I was working with
and snatched out the dirk. 1 moved
my head to one side, and reaching up
slit the sharks throat twice. He sank
down around my feet, and l tried to
get behind a pile. 1 pushed myself as
quickly as I could, hut the heavy lead
clogs on my feet would not let me move
L
draw in my left leg behind the pile the
shark turned over ON his back and
made a rush at me. His jaws closed
on my left leg, and his teeth went clean
through the quarter-inch rubber cloth.
The force with which he pushed against
me confused me SO much that did not
feel the bite. After this he let so and
foatsd upward toward my head, with
his belly exposed. l drove the dirk
into his belly and 1 ripped 1t up to-
wards his mouth, cutting his stomach
through. He then fioated up to the sur
face.
when first stabbed him had sig
nailed to King to be hauled to the sur
face, but he misunderstood my signal,
fortunately. If he had started to haul
me up feel sure that the shark would
have bitten one or both my legs off, as
he would then have had q clean chance
at them. The holes which his teeth
made In the rubber cloth let the water
into my suit, and it nose to my chest,
where II was held by the air pressure
I signabed TO King Immediately after
pluhging the dirk into the sharks belly,
but his carcass had reached the top be-
fore King got the signal, and guessing
what had occurred he had started to
haul me up in hurry. When 1 reach
ed the ladder hanging from the feat
was too much exhausted to seize II,
and they had to lift me on the float by
main force.
MY left knee was disloeated and the
aesh below 1t laeerated. remained un-
der the surgeons care for several days,
until the Yucatan arrived. My left leg
is partly paralyzed."
Cameron says he has made the deep
est dive on record. having descended
200 feet into Lech Craig In Scotland on
April 16 last, to recover the bodies of
an engineer and fireman in a locomotive
hat had fallen into the lOch.