U.S. surfer dies in shark attack in Mexico

ACAPULCO, Mexico - A U.S. surfer was killed in a shark attack off Mexico's southern Pacific coast, officials said Tuesday.

Adrian Ruiz, 24, of San Francisco bled to death on Monday after a gray shark bit his right thigh, leaving a 15-inch wound, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said in a statement.

The attack occurred at the Troncones beach, about 45 minutes west by car from the beach resort of Ixtapa.

The statement said the victim suffered wounds "that reached from the hip to the knee, exposing the femur."

The victim was still alive when he was brought back to the beach by a friend, another American who was also surfing. It took so long for the ambulance to reach the relatively isolated, undeveloped beach that a bystander took the victim to a local hospital in his car.

The man died a few minutes after reaching the hospital from loss of blood, according to the statement.

On Friday, a 66-year-old man was attacked and killed by a shark in the ocean near San Diego in the United States, the first person to die in a shark encounter off Southern California in nearly 50 years.

Fatal shark attacks in Mexico are also uncommon. The last one was in the Caribbean in 1997, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File.

No one had been killed by a shark on Mexico's Pacific coast in more than 30 years, according to the museum.

Attacks on the Atlantic coast are more frequent, especially in Florida, which has about 25 to 30 a year.

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