it was almost six o'clock.
Uh, I went out for probably about an hour.
I'd say.
It was her and one other guy were still out.
Everybody had gone in already I'm usually the last one out there surfing.
Um, well my knowledge of sharks and the ocean here, I'm always, I always have that feeling.
I always know that they're possibilities.
And you always just have that little bit of scared feeling in the back of your mind and
in your spirit, I guess just cause the knowledge I have of them.
They're always there.
I know that, but I never expected one would come and try to grab me.
So I had just got a really good wave to the right and super barreled and came out.
So's I was like, oh, get one more.
Just do that.
Still not that late.
So I paddled out, sitting there waiting for a set.
Um, it was actually my friend.
Uh, he was having his celebration of life that day.
He passed away a week, like a week or two before that.
And, uh, I just around the corner at a Cove called and all my friends were down there
and they were shooting off aerial fireworks for the celebration.
And, uh, I was just gazing up at that like, well that's, I didn't realize that that's
what was happening.
Introspect I probably should have been there, but yeah, the fireworks were going off and
I was looking up like, wow, it's really trippy looking fireworks.
Cause it was real hazy looking.
But then I found out that it had like packed a bunch to the ashes into one of the aerials
and like that's it that really kinda chalky look in the sky.
uh, right there, I looked, I looked down from looking up at the fireworks there.
It was just there coming.
It was eight to 10 feet away, mouth pend open, just coming slow motion.
It was just super slow, but also really fast.
And I felt like I was, I was on the top of the water sitting on my board, you know, only
my lower half was submerge, but just the displacement off of the shark made it feel like I was under
the water with it.
You know, I felt like my head was under sea level, just cuz of the sheer mass of the thing
moving through the water, you know, it almost sucked me under, but it just came and came
and I was just like this really happening and then wham!
It hit me right in the first thing I felt was it hit me right in the jaw, my lower lip.
And that was with the, the point of the nose.
And I'm almost, postive that's what saved me it just stunned it enough to keep its mouth
open to where I could get away.
Cause otherwise it would've just chomped right on and just leveled me.
And uh, so I got my arm out and I went underneath.
I rolled underneath its, its jaw basically got underneath it and just like pushed off
with my right knee.
It was all, you know, sanded from the skin and I got under it and it went over the top
of me and I waited.
I remember watching it pass over and once it was clear, I just pushed off the reef.
So that's why on the footage, it looks like I go flying outta the water cause I had a
push from the bottom and uh, luckily that girl was right there and I was just flipping
out trying to hold my arm.
My board, I don't wear a leash.So my board went shooting off to the side and we still
I haven't found my board.
So anyway, um, the girl was sitting right there.
Unbelievable.
She had just sat there and waited for me to come up, which is a very, brave thing to do
and uh, she had never seen a shark before that ever.
So I grabbed onto the nose of her board and I just told her paddle and I just, you know,
held on the best could and her boards really small, she, um,paddled her ass off and we
made it in eventually.
It felt like forever.
Just probably know.
Cause I mean that shark was still out there, but I know they bite and youll have a little
time before they come back.
So I wasn't trying to stress about it coming back too much, but I was just mainly focused
on trying to stop my bleeding cause it was horrific.
I could feel it like pumping out.
And uh, so I just asked her to take off her leash calmly and wrap it around my, my arm.
And uh, she did, she didn't understand at first she was like, what are you talking about?
Like take it off and wrap it on my arm when I meant the Velcro part, like straps around
her foot.
And she just took like the actual cord part and wrapped it around, which is hard to get
a good sinch on that's why you use the velcro.
but she got it around and I helped her to pull and I was like, it's not enough.
You gotta do it again.
So she, my and she's panicking.
And uh, so we got it tight enough down.
I was like, we gotta keep moving the inside and carried me up the beach and laid me down.
And a police officer showed up and put a, like a real turniquet there, like super tight.
And that probably stopped bleeding.
I didn't even look at the wound at this point it was too scary, but uh, yep.
The pain too.
I've been through a lot of pain and that topped everything.
I suffered two lacerations on my forearm, which were from the top jaw on the left side
of the shark.
When I repel, when that's, how I got out of it, mouth, it didn't actually chomp down on
me.
It just, I rubbed that was just from gliding across the top and bottom jaw.
And that's like how I pushed out to get under it and out of the way.
but I had about 70 something stitches all together in my arm.
And the, the laceration, the top laceration from the top teeth yeah.
Were about four inches deep.
Very, very deep the surgeon was telling about it after.
And uh, just the, he said the muscles were just completely mangeled in there, but he
ended up having to, um, reconnect my ulna nerve on the elbow that controls all your
control and sensation.
That was completely severed.
But uh, he put that back together as best he could.
Two tendons and then just stitched me up.
Other than that I had, 11 stitch in my lower lip and I lost one tooth and the other four
are very loose and may still fall out.
Two cuts on one on each side of the knuckle on my left hand just from, I think maybe as
my hand was coming outta the mouth.
I just caught teeth or something.
I was very, very lucky.
I was thinking it was an 18 footer, but in retrospect, it was a 14, 15 footer and I'm
almost positive It was pregnant just because the way it was shaped the stomach and everything,
it looked pregnant.
The mouth, when it was open, it was so big.
It was like, I could almost stood up in there.
Yeah.
You can't really see much in the video, but as um, when I grabbed on and we started piling
away, she, she watched it swim off like, uh, back out to see her like towards where my
board was.
And um, she said it just looked giagantic like a big submarine moving super slow.
My blood loss was the main thought.
Like I figured I was about to die, just cuz all the blood I lost.
Cause I know from experiences you loose a certain amount of blood, you die no matter
what.
So that was my main concern.
That's all I was thinking about.
And obviously her safety, I didn't want me to come back and kill both of us, that would
have just been horrible.
So I just try to keep my arm up outta the water and try to get the least amount of blood
dripping as I could, which was almost a losing battle.
But I was trying.
I grew up in ocean and I love the ocean.
I just, I love ocean.
I always have.
And just a part of me, I'm probably in ocean more than I'm on the land.
I've a lot of experiences with sharks fishing in the pack.They're always pretty much there.
I mean huge sharks around me, tiger sharks.
You like upwards of 20 feet and I've never been actually like attacked, like biten, but
I've been, you know, definitely harassed cause I always have a big fish with me, and they
bleed and there's a lot sharks out there.
just that, because of that alone, always subconsciously or not, I've always had the feeling that I
might get bit, it could happen.
I could be attacked by shark.
I could get bit and it's not too far fetched and it's inevitable really, if you think about
it just cause all the time I on there.
Um, so I know my odds are different than other people's odds of getting bit by a shark. and
I think just that alone is a big factor and the vibration you put off when you're scared
of a sshark.
I'm sure I'm pretty sure they tune into that.
So just that little bit of fear in me that I don't really recognize.
Right, right away or front, it's always there.
I think.
So.
I think I have a feeling that that was a big contributor to honing in on me and biting
me of all people.
I wasn't fishy that day.
I hadn't gone fishing that day.
I wasn't bloddy didn't have, you know,I was clean.
I was just surfing.
There's nothing for to attract it.
But maybe some radio waves.
I just want to like, if I can help in way to just educate people about how it, cause
there's so many like ocean Ramsey and like people trying tell everybody the sharks are
safe and sharks are this, I get their point and you, I know they're getting killed off
massively, but it doesn't like even before this, I still don't encourage that because
they're dangerous and they're everywhere and there's we swim.
We like to swim and surf where they feed like on the ledges and you know, those kind of
spots out croppings.
And I always tell people, just be aware and just know, try to just always look around
and make sure that that's something not creeping up on me.
Cause it's the only way to know there's no machine or camera or device that's gonna help
you be being alerted to a shark attack.
It's just your lack of food.
Cause all the boats just netting everything out.
I mean, being a fisherman, I see them decline in fish.
There's no denying that.
I mean, over the years it's just dropped dramatically.
It's sad.
I mean, they're so greedy.
Just netted 'em all up one time.
How are they gonna survive?
You take the whole school.
Just in not ever let your guard down in ocean.
Cause there's no fences and no gates and anything can happen and there's, you know, there's
a lot of sharks and they're Getting hungrier they have less food.
So, or the next option
I can't wait to get back in.
I'd go surf right now if I could.
Yep.
Be out there slaying heat agian and feeding everybody and eating shashimi
Living good life.
Everybody always told me I was crazy for fish on the kayak, but I I've stood firm.
That surfing is more crazy and I was right.
But uh, yeah, it's been quite an experience, but I'm, uh, optimistic that everything will
back to normal and yep.
The ocean's still there.
My arm's still there, so I'm pretty lucky.
Like by me I saw, I saw it right directly in front of where I got bit.
I was fishing and I saw that I'm positive.
The same truck that bit me, came up like three feet in front of me and I saw his eye and
he kept swimming and I paddled my ass off to get in .
I was about less than a week before I got bit.
It was, um, I fish off my kayak, like I said, and like I go way out, like to the, the fad,
which is a, it's like a boyou that create, you know life that brings fish around.
So thats where I catch all like the big, big tunes stuff.
And I, the day before I got a 350 pound Marlin on my kayak.
Which people think is crazy, but yeah, that's, that's regular for me.
That's kinda what I do.
And uh, yeah, I was out there that day and I didn't have any fish with me, but the thing
still came and checked me out and I had already heard about it because the diver that got
the footage of it.
Did you see that footage at all?
Yeah.
It's the same shark and no doubt about like looking at the eyes of that thing.
It was like, no doubting that's the same shark.
It was probably about one o'clock when I saw it.
I know it was probably like maybe four miles out or so three, three or four miles.
I was out there live baiting and I was actually on my way in and probably about halfway from
the buoy to land, but you know, not that far, it was probably only two to three miles from
Banyans where I got attacked.
I probably saw him for about no more than two minutes.
Probably it came up.
I saw it and then watched it kinda, you know, fade off.
I paddled my ass off to get away from it obviously I tried not to look at him too much.
It was very visible.
Atleast 10-15 feet away from me.