Authorities say a man apparently bitten by a shark off the North Carolina Outer Banks is being airlifted to a hospital with serious wounds.

Justin Gibbs, the director of emergency services in Hyde County, says the attack happened around noon Wednesday on a beach on Ocracoke Island. The National Park Service says the man is 68 and was swimming in waist-deep water about 25 feet offshore.

He suffered wounds to his ribcage, lower leg, hip and both hands as he tried to fight off the animal.

Laura Irish Hefty of New Hope, Pennsylvania, says her husband saw blood on both of the man's legs.

The man is the seventh person attacked along the North Carolina coast in three weeks.

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