RALEIGH, N.C. — A shark bit a 68-year-old man several times Wednesday in waist-deep water off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the seventh in a record-breaking year of shark attacks for the state’s coastal waters.

A spokesman at the Greenville, N.C., hospital where he was taken said Wednesday night that the man, Andrew Costello, was in fair condition.

He suffered wounds to his rib cage, lower leg, hip and both hands as he tried to fight off the animal, said Justin Gibbs, director of emergency services. The attack happened around noon on a beach on Ocracoke Island.

“He was pulled under by the shark,” said Gibbs, who said witnesses said the animal was about 7 feet long.