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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 5:15 p.m., Thursday, September 11, 2008

Shark bite victim unsure whether he'll surf again

The 40-year-old veteran surfer who was bit in the thigh and ankle Tuesday night at Crouching Lion on Oahu's Windward Side doesn't know whether he'll ever surf again.

Todd Murashige also sliced his left pinkie finger prying the shark's jaws off of his thigh.

"I want to get back to walking first," said Murashige, a husband and father of two children.

Murashige, a tile setter from Kaneohe, could not identify the species of shark that bit him and only saw the head — which he believes was 18 inches to 2 feet wide — when Murashige pried its jaws from his thigh.

He believes he was only bitten once.

But one of Murashige's orthopedic surgeons at The Queen's Medical Center, Dr. Kevin Christensen, said a laceration to Murashige's right ankle indicates he was bitten twice.