Open-water swimmer identified as victim of fatal shark attack in Northern California

PACIFIC GROVE, Calif. — A swimmer who went missing after being attacked by a shark last week off the Northern California coast and whose body was found days later was identified as an open ocean swimmer from Pebble Beach.

Authorities recovered Erica Fox's body Saturday from the ocean south of Davenport Beach in Santa Cruz County, the sheriff's office said in a statement Monday.

Fox, 55, had been missing since going on a swim Dec. 21 in Monterey Bay with her husband and other members of the Kelp Krawlers, an open-water swimming club she co-founded.

''She didn't want to live in fear,'' her husband, Jean-Francois Vanreusel, told the Mercury News during a vigil Sunday, a day after her body was found. ''She lived her life fully.''

Vanreuse, who led the vigil to commemorate his wife of 30 years, said she was still wearing her white Garmin watch and a ''shark band'' was still attached to her ankle. The band is an electromagnetic device meant to ward off sharks. She was a triathlete who completed two Half Ironmans and numerous other triathlons.

Vanreusel didn't witness the attack on his wife but two people on shore did, the Mercury News reported. He told the newspaper she taught him how to swim, and like her, he came to love the ocean waters.

Experts say that shark attacks are exceedingly rare — rarer than being struck by lightning or mauled by a bear.

Still, members of her swimming club were shaken by her death since it was the second shark attack on a member of the group. In 2022, fellow club member Steve Bruemmer was attacked by a great white shark and was severely injured.

After his attack, many of the swimmers started wearing the same kind of electromagnetic ''Sharkbanz'' that Fox was wearing, even though most swimmers knew they would do little to deter a high-speed attack from below, the newspaper reported.

Bruemmer, who pledged never to swim in the ocean again, used walking sticks to join the vigil Sunday.

''I was also bitten by a shark,'' Bruemmer told the crowd, ''and I can tell you that it doesn't hurt. I don't understand why, but it's not physically painful to be badly bitten. So I believe that in her final moments, Erica was not suffering in pain. And I hope that that can be of some comfort to people.''

He paused and steadied himself on his walking sticks.