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MAUI, Hawaii – The Californian man killed by a shark in Hawaii this weekend was an avid island visitor and a retired diver, a friend said.
A shark attacked Thomas Smiley, 65, while swimming on Saturday in the Ka'anapali Beach Park area of Maui, police said.
One witness stated that when rescuers lured him to shore and started CPR, he was missing a knee leg. Smiley died on the scene.
A long-time friend, Gary Taxera, told Hawaii News Today Sunday that Smiley was an optometrist from Granite Bay, California, near Sacramento.
Smiley regularly went on vacation to Maui and loved swimming, water skiing and racing cars, he said.
"He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time to do something in a place he loved," Taxera said.
Smiley leaves a wife, three children and six grandchildren. Taxera has described it as having a larger-than-life personality.
"He was a man of heart, and people who did not get to know him really missed out," said Taxera.
Witness Allison Keller told the TV channel that the man had appeared unconscious when he had been removed from the water.
"As we got closer, I saw blood on her belly, then a little more, and her wrist – it looked like the skin on her wrist was tearing," Keller said. "And then I looked more closely, and he just missed the left leg of his knee down."
He was swimming about 60 meters from the shore when the attack occurred, the authorities said.
The last deadly attack against a shark in Hawaii occurred in 2015, when a snorkel off Maui was killed.
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