June 19, 2001, 7:34AM

Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO -- A 14-year-old boy who was bitten by a shark while swimming in the Gulf of Mexico is recovering, but his father is warning others to be careful.

Ed Black said he and his wife, nephew and 14-year-old son, Jared Black, were on a beach south of Corpus Christi when his son was attacked while swimming in waist-deep water.

"What scares me is that there were other people there swimming that day, and they had little kids," Black said.

(continued)

The attack occurred June 12, about 10 miles south of Malaquite Beach along the Padre Island National Seashore.

"He never saw the shark," Black told the San Antonio Express-News in San Antonio. "There was just a big bite and blood all over the place."

A park ranger who saw the wound said it was from a bull shark or blacktip shark measuring at least 5 feet long, Black said.

The teen-ager was taken to Bay Area Hospital in Corpus Christi, where he received 10 stitches. He has recovered from his wound without an infection, his father said.

A nursing supervisor at the hospital said today no other information was available.

On May 29, a shark bit a 16-year-old boy swimming about 50 yards off Galveston Island. That attack was the island's third reported shark bite in 20 years.

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