Historical reference record — not independently verified
1959 Panama City diving/shark event
What happened
Multiple historical incidents share this year and location URL. Each supplied record is shown separately.
What is known
- Recorded classification: Multi-incident location/year archive
What remains uncertain
- The legacy route is better restored as the linked event rather than silently selecting one participant.
- Historical source match supplied with the recovery material; not independently verified.
Fact panel
- Date
- Multiple dates — see individual records
- Date precision
- Year
- Location
- 1959 Panama City diving/shark event, Florida / Bay County, USA
- Country
- USA
- Activity
- Unknown
- Incident classification
- Multi-incident location/year archive
- Area / state
- Florida / Bay County
- Outcome
- Unknown
- Species
- Unknown
- Species confidence
- Reported
- Coordinate precision
- Region
Individual historical records
This historical URL contains multiple incidents at the recorded locality. Each record is retained separately.
The legacy route is better restored as the linked event rather than silently selecting one participant.
Lt. James C. Neal — 1959-08-15
- date
- 1959-08-15
- person
- Lt. James C. Neal
- age
- 26
- sex
- M
- activity
- Scuba diving
- outcome
- Fatal / presumed
- injury
- Disappeared; dive gear/clothing recovered with bite marks; body not recovered.
Gary Seymour — 1959-08-15
- date
- 1959-08-15
- person
- Gary Seymour
- age
- 21
- sex
- M
- activity
- Diving/searching for Neal
- outcome
- Non-fatal
- species
- Large blue/mako sharks reported
- injury
- No injury; encountered sharks while searching.
Incident location
1959 Panama City diving/shark event, Florida / Bay County, USA
Approximate area: Florida
The marker represents the named area, not the exact incident site.
The interactive map loads when it comes into view. Incident details remain available as text.
Location precision: Approximate area
Representative map position for Florida from Natural Earth. This marks the general area, not the exact incident site. This is historical location context, not live shark tracking or a measure of risk.
Sources and verification
- Historical newspaper and GSAF-derived records — www.sharkattacksurvivors.comSupports: Historical incident fields; supplied source match, not independent verification
Shark incident records can change as investigations develop. This page shows the current verification status and was last restored from supplied historical reference material on 2026-09-25.
Historical facts retain the provenance and uncertainty of the cited references. Source timestamps record when the supplied material was imported, not an independent source retrieval or verification.
Supplementary content updated: 2026-09-24. This does not change the original verification status or review date.