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.
– 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.