Tuesday, March 22, 1999

WAILUKU -- A visitor to Maui told fire officials his newlywed wife was fatally attacked by a shark after their kayak was blown off shore by high winds near Lahaina. "He was distraught," said Assistant Chief Richard Fernandez. The man said he and his wife went for a ride on a rented kayak Thursday at a beach near the Olowalu side of the Lahaina pali and were blown off shore by high winds, according to fire officials. They were identified as Manouchehr Monazzami-Taghadom, 39, and his wife, Nahid Davoodabai, 29, of Sunnyvale, Calif. . "They got off the kayak and tried to swim back pulling the kayak," Fernandez recalled the man as saying. "The shark took off one of her arms." The man said he got back on the kayak, pulled his wife onto it, and tried to stop her bleeding by tying a tourniquet around her injured arm with the tie from his swim trunks, Fernandez said. The man told fire officials his wife died in his arms. He said he drifted after the attack and landed on Kahoolawe at about 7 a.m. Friday morning. Fernandez said the man found a telephone in a military bunker on Kahoolawe and called for help close to 11:45 a.m. yesterday. Fernandez said fire officials conducted a helicopter search of the island but found no woman. He said officials saw a kayak about 3/4 of a mile away from the bunker. A police spokesman said detectives hoped to retrieve the kayak today. The man reportedly suffered from exposure.

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