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A deckhand from Florida was working in The Bahamas when he suffered a nightmarish shark attack after falling in the water at a marina.
The marina is a popular docking spot for fishing boats who toss the fish carcasses into the water after filleting the fish and this has created a resident population of sharks at the Flying Fish Marina on Long Island. Over the years, these sharks have become accustomed to pouncing when they hear something ‘slap’ the water because that’s what it sounds like when a tuna or mahi-mahi filleted carcass hits the surface and they descend as quickly as possible on the noise in hopes of getting an easy meal before the other sharks.
When 24-year-old Marlin Wakeman, a deckhand on a boat that was at the Flying Fish Marina on Long Island, misjudged a jump on the dock and hit the water the sharks didn’t see a person in the water. Like Pavlov’s Dogs, they responded to Classical Conditioning and descended on whatever hit the water. In this case, it was Marlin Wakeman and two reef sharks bit him.
Bahamas Shark Attack Caught On Video, Florida Man Talks About Surviving
Somehow, the incident was caught on video and Marlin Wakeman made it out of the water within a few seconds knowing he had to get out as fast as he possibly could or else risk further shark attacks with blood in the water. Marlin shared his story this week now that he’s recovering from the shark bites that narrowly missed his femoral artery:
Marlin told Fox News Digital he wound up in the ‘shark den’ and everyone now keeps asking him if he’s traumatized from the situation. He said “it’s definitely a big scary thing that happened to me, and I’m definitely shaken up from it, but I knew what would happen as soon as I fell in.”
According to Wakeman, he wasn’t scared in the moment. It was a survival situation and he knew he had to get out of the water as fast as humanly possible or the situation would worsen by the second.
Wakeman says he and other deckhands had discussed what might happen if someone ever fell in. The sharks are always there and they are always responsive to something hitting the water, jokingly referred to as ‘pets’ because of how conditioned the sharks have become to stay put for free meals.
He said “what we’ve created is if something hits the water they’re going to bite it, whether it’s a stick, a human, a shore power cord that falls in the water. I realized quickly that this is the last place you want to fall in the water.”
Once he misjudged the jump and fell in the water he was only in there for 5 to 7 seconds but had been bitten twice, by two separate sharks, and knew his life depended on getting out quickly. The second bite came on his shoulder when a shark nipped him as another deckhand was pulling him out of the water.
Once out of the water, there was a man on a sailboat who began to panic, yelling “He’s bleeding out!” to the captain. At that point, Wakeman was like “hey, can we get this guy away from me? This is freaking me out a little bit.” and added “I was like, hey man, I don’t really wanna die right now. This ain’t it.”
The captain quickly tied a tourniquet and he was rushed to the nearest medical center then flown from The Bahamas to Florida for treatment. He passed out from the pain and Dr. Robert Borrego (his surgeon) said the shark bite was dangerously close to his femoral artery which, if the shark had gotten it would have led to Marlin bleeding out within minutes.
Now he’s back, telling his story, and expected to make a full recovery. You can see some gnarly photos of his injuries on Marlin’s Instagram page.