Shark attack hero tickles ivories one year later

HOUSTON, Texas, Sept. 26, 2005 – Few people would have believed last summer that Aaron Perez would be playing piano and basketball by January. But those who cared for him at Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital learned the Freeport middle-schooler is nobody's victim – not even a man-sized shark's.

Late on a Sunday afternoon (July 25, 2004), 11-year-old Aaron, his father Blas Perez and close family friend Don Townes picked up their fishing poles and waded into the surf at Bryan Beach.

The trio cast their lines in water knee-deep to the men and chest-deep to Aaron. A huge school of speckled trout swam in around them. Suddenly, the trout moved away from the men and concentrated around Aaron. As the boy turned to tell the others about catching a fish, the shark attacked.

“It was like a dog fight,” his father said a few days later.

Aaron, who had just watched a Discovery Channel “Shark Week” program, pummeled the animal in the gills as he had learned on TV. His father and friend soon joined in until the shark released Aaron.

He had been bitten three times. The shark severed all soft tissues in Aaron's right arm, leaving the hand attached only by broken bones.

“I didn't know what was happening,” Aaron's mother, Thelma Perez, said shortly after the attack. “I just thought they were excited because they had a big fish. I actually went back to the truck to get a camera.”

As the men dragged Aaron from the water, Townes tightly gripped the wiry boy's upper arm to stem the blood flow. They took him to a nearby fire station, where a Memorial Hermann Life Flight helicopter and its crew of critical care nurses picked him up.

Aaron was in an operating room at Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital within two hours of the attack. A team led by microsurgeon Emmanuel Melissinos, M.D., identified and tagged the 25 muscles, two main arteries, six veins and three primary nerve groups that had been cut by the jagged shark's teeth. During the 4 ½-hour surgery, they first restored circulation by repairing the blood vessels, then painstakingly reattached the nerves and muscles.

By the time Aaron left the hospital a week later, Dr. Melissinos knew the boy wasn't an average patient. Thanks to his unsinkable attitude, Aaron was recovering faster than expected. He could already move his fingers a little.

Aaron went to physical therapy for six months, but he and his family also diligently concentrated on recovery at home. He followed doctor's orders to move his fingers every 10 minutes, for example.

“He was just determined to do it,” Mrs. Perez said. “We just followed the orders because we knew it would be important, and it was, because now his hand works perfectly.”

Although Aaron's recovery caused him to miss the first month of school last year, he went back a battle-scarred, shark-fighting, sixth-grade hero.

At that time he still lacked the dexterity to play piano like before, so he took up a new instrument – the violin. To help him grip the bow, the school's orchestra director attached a ball to the end.

By January, he was shooting hoops in a recreational basketball league, and he decided to try piano again. His uncharacteristic dejection after the first lesson surprised his mother.

“He said, ‘I can't play piano. My fingers don't work right,' ” she recalls. “I told him, ‘You fought a big shark. That's much harder than playing the piano.' The next week he said, ‘Mom, everything came back!'”

Maintaining such a positive attitude is key to helping a child recover after a traumatic injury, Mrs. Perez advises. “They read you. You have to encourage them,” she said.

Aaron had three things going for him: his youth, his family's support and the fact that nobody panicked at the beach, including Aaron, who calmly asked others to pray for him.

“Everybody around him responded correctly and brought him here in the best possible shape, which made our work much easier,” said Dr. Melissinos, who started the microsurgery program at Memorial Hermann 26 years ago.

Patients whose limbs are reattached must often undergo multiple surgeries, but despite his severe wounds, Aaron required just one. “His progress was much faster than the average person's with this type of injury,” Dr. Melissinos said.

A year after the attack, life is almost back to normal for the Perez family. Aaron is fishing more than ever, although his mom says he is more cautious in the water now.

The main difference is Aaron's newfound notoriety. Reporters from as far away as France interviewed Aaron about his experience last summer. They often asked him whether he planned to go back in the ocean.

“I am going back in the water,” Aaron would tell them. “I'm not going to let this overtake me. I have to face it.”

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