That was the last she heard from the 19-year-old son she described as a fearless athlete with "the sweetest heart." 
 
 "You wouldn’t believe these waves, Mom. I can’t wait to get to them," he told Candace Ransom, who told him to have fun and call afterward. 
 
 Before they plunged into the chilly waters, Ransom pulled out his cellphone. 
 
 No wind, glassy conditions -- they agreed it was going to be a great session for Garcia on his surfboard and Ransom on his beat-up, red bodyboard. 
 
 Six-foot waves were breaking when Lucas Ransom and his longtime buddy Matthew Garcia arrived at Surf Beach west of Lompoc on Friday morning. 
 
 The two young men had been in the waves for about 45 minutes when a shark appeared out of nowhere and pulled Ransom under. There was no warning, Garcia said. The shark appeared to be about 18 to 20 feet long, he said. 
 
 Ransom looked at his friend a couple of feet away and said “Help me, dude,” before getting lost in the waves, Garcia said. "It was very stealth," he said. "You would have never known there was a shark in the water. It was all really quick." 
 
 Ransom’s left leg was ripped off at the pelvis, his parents said. Garcia tried to give him chest compressions as he pulled him to shore, but Ransom was bleeding profusely and died before they got there. 
 
 Witnesses told authorities that the young men were about 100 yards offshore when the attack occurred. Fire personnel from Vandenberg Air Force Base pronounced Ransom dead at the scene. 
 
 Authorities quickly closed Surf Beach and two other beaches nearby for at least 72 hours. Surf Beach is on Vandenberg’s 42 miles of coastline, but the public has access to it from California Highway 246. 
 
 Federal and state wildlife officials are working to identify the type of shark that attacked Ransom. A shark expert said Friday that, based on its behavior and Ransom’s injury, it most likely was a great white. 
 
 "It takes a shark of massive size and jaw to inflict that kind of injury," said Andrew Nosal of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. 
 
 Great whites seek prey at the water's surface and attack with enormous ferocity from underneath, Nosal said, adding that the silhouette of a surfer on a bodyboard looks a lot like a sea lion on the surface. After they bite, it's too late. 
 
 "It may be mistaken identity," he said. 
 
 About 75% of fatal shark attacks are caused by great whites. Even so, attacks are exceedingly rare, Nosal said. The last fatality in California was in 2008, when a 17-foot shark killed a retired veterinarian who was swimming off Solana Beach. 
 
 -- Steve Chawkins and Catherine Saillant ||||| Spencer Weiner, AP 
 
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 SURF BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 22) -- A 19-year-old surfer who died after getting bitten by a shark today off the Santa Barbara coast likely was attacked by the feared great white shark, an expert told AOL News.Lucas Ransom, a junior at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was attacked shortly before 9 a.m. PDT. Three beaches in Santa Barbara County were closed immediately after the attack. KEYT-TV reported that the shark bit off the surfer's leg and he bled to death.The great white "is the likely culprit," said Steve Blair, assistant curator of the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif., and a shark expert. "There is really nothing else I could think of in a normal course of events who would do this except a great white."Blair said only a dozen out of the world's 400 shark species could inflict a bite like that and great whites are known to troll the coast of California and swim close to shore in search of seals and sea lions."The method is to do a surprise attack, usually from below with great force and inflict one devastating bite and let the victim weaken," Blair said. "They basically swim around a couple of minutes before finishing off the prey."The victim was boogie boarding 100 yards off the beach with a friend when a shark suddenly pulled Ransom under the water, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department. The animal was between 14 and 20 feet in length, which is consistent with a great white, Blair said.The friend apparently tried to get Ransom out of the water."I think he [Ransom] was dead before he made it to shore," Lt. Julie McCammon of the Sheriff's Department told AOL News.The shark was likely swimming around as the pair fled from the water, Blair said.Swimmers should stay out of the water in the area, but it's unlikely that the shark is out hunting humans, he added."The shark has likely moved on and is very far away by now," Blair said. "But if it's still in the area looking for seals and sea lions and comes across another swimmer, there's no reason why lightning couldn't strike twice."The last great white shark fatality in California was two years ago, when a triathlete swimmer was bitten in the leg off the coast of San Diego. He died a short time later from blood loss.Ransom was a chemical engineering major, according to the school's news director, George Foulsham. He was from Riverside County, just outside Los Angeles.The area where today's attack occurred is a popular surfing spot and is adjacent to the Vandenberg Air Force Base, which responded to the incident. ||||| Photo via Facebook Arthur Medici. 
 
 REVERE — Paddling on his boogie board, getting in position to catch the next good wave at a Wellfleet beach early Saturday afternoon, Arthur Medici went underwater. 
 
 Five or 10 yards away, Isaac Rocha heard a scream as his friend resurfaced. He saw a fin and blood in the water. He swam over, grabbed Medici, and began dragging him the almost 40 yards to shore. 
 
 “It’s something that never passes your brain, your mind — you never think about that” happening, said Rocha, 16, of Everett, in a phone interview Sunday night. “It was just horrible, the worst feeling in the world,” he said. 
 
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 Rocha tried to save him, tying a boogie board strap as a makeshift tourniquet around Medici’s leg. But the 26-year-old from Revere had been attacked by a shark and was declared dead at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis later Saturday. 
 
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 Medici was planning to marry Rocha’s sister. The teen said he remembered Medici as a person full of love who was like an older brother to him. 
 
 “He meant a lot for everyone,” Rocha said. “Everyone he came in touch with he was loved [by], and loved.” 
 
 He said Medici “always fought for things he loved and who he loved.” 
 
 Medici had had rings custom made in his native Brazil and planned to propose to Emily Rocha on a beach soon, according to Rocha. 
 
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 Rocha said Medici was an engineering student, who had recently finished summer classes, and an avid body surfer, who frequently took him on trips to the Cape and Rhode Island. The two had surfed together at Newcomb Hollow until dusk the night before and also five days before that. 
 
 “There isn’t a way to describe how much this hurts,” he said. 
 
 On Sunday, the strong smell of the ocean at Revere Beach filled the air around the pale blue house on a quiet street where Medici lived with his aunt and uncle. 
 
 Medici had moved in with them on Beachland Avenue about four years earlier, said Marisa Medici, his aunt, in a brief phone interview. Medici’s parents live in Brazil, she said. 
 
 Itamar Medici, the victim’s father, wrote painfully of his loss on Facebook Sunday. 
 
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 “Son... you left me. I’m broken and left without the will to live,” he posted in Portuguese. 
 
 “I was fighting to give you everything and now . . . who’s going to keep what I was saving up to give to you. I don’t have the will to live anymore because nothing makes sense anymore . . . I love you for all of eternity,” he wrote. 
 
 A GoFundMe page established to benefit Medici’s family had exceeded its $25,000 goal as of early Monday. 
 
 Medici was active with his church, and loved hiking, biking, surfing, and other sports, according to a statement posted to the fund-raiser site. 
 
 “Our lives are never going to be the same without him. His laughter filled our home and he will be greatly missed by us all,” the statement said. 
 
 Medici was a student at Bunker Hill Community College, where he enrolled part time during the spring semester, according to a college statement. 
 
 “The faculty, staff and administration of Bunker Hill Community College offer their sincerest condolences after the tragic death of Arthur Medici who was killed in a shark attack on Cape Cod Saturday afternoon,” according to the statement. 
 
 Photo courtesy of Rosi Gava Arthur Medici. 
 
 The college is offering support to faculty and students who may have been in class with Medici, according to college spokeswoman Brooke L. Yarborough. 
 
 Richard Collins, director of Fitzgerald & Collins in Marlborough, visited the home on Beachland Avenue Sunday afternoon to discuss funeral services. He said as he was leaving that plans have not been finalized. 
 
 Medici’s death was the first from a shark attack in more than 80 years, and only the fourth in Massachusetts history. It was not clear what kind of shark had bitten Medici. 
 
 Saturday’s attack came after a New York man was injured by a shark while swimming near Truro last month. A previous shark attack near Truro in 2012 left another man injured while bodysurfing. 
 
 Last month, Nathan Sears, Orleans’s harbormaster, wrote on Facebook that the “inshore waters off of Cape Cod are truly a wild place” and people should practice extreme caution while visiting the area. 
 
 “Regardless of how much signage and information we provide, there still seems to be a concerning level of complacency,” Sears wrote. “People continue to risk entering and swimming in the water even after the recent incident in Truro where the man was bitten.” 
 
 Sharks are drawn to the waters off the Cape by hundreds of seals, and residents in the area have seen shark sightings increase as the seal population has grown in the past few decades, officials have said. 
 
 “There are two things we can’t control: Shark behavior and seal behavior... what does that leave us? We have to modify our behavior,” said Greg Skomal, program manager and senior scientist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries. 
 
 Colin Sheehan sat with his 12-year-son, Dermott, on the edge of a sand dune on Newcomb Hollow Beach Sunday afternoon watching the ocean where Medici had been attacked. 
 
 Sheehan, 51, said he had met Medici on the same beach a few days before the attack while they were changing out of their wetsuits. 
 
 Medici was with a friend, he said, and looked like he was having a good time. 
 
 When he saw Medici’s face in the paper Sunday, Sheehan said he started shaking and crying. 
 
 “It’s surreal, everyone’s kind of in shock, “ Sheehan said. “[My son] and I would be in the water right now but it’s too scary. It went from hypothetical to reality.” 
 
 He was not going in the water Sunday, he said, despite the picture-perfect day, but many other surfers did, disregarding a sign that said “No swimming, surfing etc. until further notice.” 
 
 Underneath the sign was a memorial that had been set up with candles, shells, and flowers. 
 
 Earlier in the day, beachgoers said surfers had a spotter standing on the dunes with binoculars looking out for sharks. 
 
 Debee Tlumacki for The Boston Globe People paused near a make-shift memorial on Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet for shark attack victim Arthur Medici, who was killed by a shark Saturday while boogie boarding. 
 
 Miranda Kielpinski, 28, of Harwich was taking advantage of the swell Sunday. What had happened was terrible, she said, but the ocean is a playground for these animals. 
 
 “When you surf it’s a passion,” said Kielpinski. “We’re well of aware of what could happen.” 
 
 Paul Fleming, 69, of Eastham said he was on Newcomb Hollow when the attack occurred. 
 
 The retiree and lifelong surfer had watched as Medici was pulled out of the water Saturday. 
 
 Sunday, he was back on the beach preparing to surf for a couple of hours. 
 
 Surfing is something they live for, he said. 
 
 “It’s still traumatic to me today right now and this is my solution for it,” Fleming said. “I need to, we all have to go out here. We cannot not go out here. We must do it. I’m nervous as hell, but I owe it to the young man who died yesterday.” 
 
 As she sat on the shore Sunday, Pennsylvania resident Susan Ketchum, 55, said she couldn’t stop thinking about the young man who lost his life the day before. 
 
 “I was paying homage to him silently in my chair,” she said. “Just thinking a lot about it. I didn’t know him but I love this place and I love the ocean.” 
 
 Globe correspondent Debora Almeida contributed to this report. Lucas Phillips can be reached at lucas.phillips@globe.com . John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com . Cristela Guerra can be reached at cristela.guerra@globe.com
– A UCSB student died yesterday after being attacked by a shark while boogie boarding off the coast of Santa Barbara. Lucas Ransom, 19, was pulled off his board about 100 yards from shore just before 9am; his left leg was ripped off at his pelvis, according to the LA Times. Ransom was just a few feet away from friend Matthew Garcia—who said the two had joked the night before about the chances they would be attacked by a shark—at the time. He said, “Help me, dude,” before disappearing in the waves, Garcia said. "You just saw a red wave and this water is blue, and it was just red, the whole wave." Garcia saw his friend's body board pop up shortly thereafter, swam to the body, and did chest compressions as he brought him to shore of Surf Beach, an open-to-the-public spot on Vandenberg Air Force Base, located some 130 miles northwest of LA. Ransom, described by his parents as an avid swimmer once credited for saving a drowning child at a local pool, was a junior majoring in Chemical Engineering. Based on the size of Ransom's injury, experts believe he may have been attacked by a great white. Click here for more.