Incident Report
Great White Shark Encounters Surfer at Oregon Beach
Arch Cape, Oregon·United States
A 43-year-old surfer at Short Sand Beach in Oregon was struck by a 5-meter great white shark that bit his board and became entangled in his leash. Though the encounter was dramatic, the surfer escaped without injury.
Please take a moment to consider the human impact of this event on the victim and their loved ones. The data presented here documents real events that affected real people and families.
Why this is notable
Exceptionally well-documented case investigated by Ralph Collier of the Shark Research Committee, featuring an unusually detailed eyewitness account of a large white shark becoming temporarily entangled in the surfboard leash and dragging the victim underwater, with precise tooth-arc measurements (35 cm) from board damage and contextual environmental detail including the presence of a grey whale nearby — making it a scientifically and archivally significant record of complex predatory behaviour with no resulting injury.
Incident Profile
Circumstances
Environmental
Individual
Location
Description
On September 21, 1994, Rob MacKenzie, a 43-year-old surfer from Portland, Oregon, experienced a remarkable encounter with a great white shark at Short Sand Beach in Oswald West State Park. MacKenzie and his companion Greg Movsesyan had been surfing for approximately 75 minutes in sunny, calm conditions when the incident occurred around 4:30 PM. The ocean was glassy with gentle one-meter swells, water temperature near 14°C, and visibility limited to about two meters. The surfers were positioned roughly 70 meters from shore in approximately 12 feet of water. While the pair watched a gray whale breaching approximately 1.6 kilometers offshore, Movsesyan noticed a gray form moving beneath his board. Recognizing it from his experience with dolphins in California, he initially felt unconcerned. The form then approached MacKenzie's position and surfaced, striking the side of his board approximately three-quarters of the way forward. The impact propelled MacKenzie into the air, though he remained tethered to his two-meter surfboard by a leash. The shark, estimated at five meters in length, became impaled on the surfboard sidewise on its lower jaw. To dislodge the board, the shark raised its back half from the water and repeatedly slammed its head against the surface. As the board floated free, the shark dove with such force that its tail became caught in MacKenzie's leash, pulling both the surfer and board deeper. The intense strain caused the leash to snap, launching the board into the air and allowing MacKenzie to surface and retrieve it. Both surfers paddled rapidly toward shore, reaching waist-deep water while beach-goers and other surfers reacted with alarm. Remarkably, MacKenzie sustained no significant injury, though his wetsuit bore a graze mark opposite his right hamstring, presumably from a shark tooth. The surfboard sustained substantial damage: an arc of lower-tooth impressions measuring 35 centimeters across punctured the board's bottom, with the center corresponding to the shark's jaw line located near the front third of the board. This incident remains a documented example of an unprovoked shark encounter resulting in no human injury despite direct physical contact with a large predator.