iStockphoto / RamonCarretero
A surfer is lucky to be alive after a 9-foot Great White Shark bit his arm and latched onto his surfboard at New Zealand’s Pauanui Beach. 60-year-old Nick Minogue ‘lives to surf’ but I have to imagine this wild encounter with a Great White has him more than a little shook.
He recounted his story with the news and said he was able to defend his life and fight off the great white shark that had latched onto his board by hollering at the shark to ‘fuck off’ and punching it in the eyeball. The first punch missed but luckily he landed one and was able to spook the shark into taking off (via Fox News):
“By the time I realized what was going on its teeth were definitely latched on to the front section of the board,” he told the Herald.
After remembering that he heard sharks don’t like it if you punch them in the nose or eye, Minogue said he then took aim at his attacker“So I actually shouted at it ‘f— off!’ and went to punch it in the eye and missed,” he told the Herald’ “Then I pulled my fist back and shouted ‘f— off!’ again and got it right smack bang in the eye.”
The 60-year-old said that in between the two punches, the shark “crunched down” on his board before disengaging and letting go, brushing him with its dorsal and tail fin as it swam away. After the incident, Minogue said he paddled back to shore along with another German surfer who was about 160 feet away from him when the attack took place.
“The German guy was kind of screaming the whole way which probably made me paddle even faster,” he told the Herald. (via Fox News)
He has since gone on the news to tell his tale and it’s a damn good one, eerily reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in The Beach after spearing that shark in the rain storm:
He told the news there was blood dripping out of his wetsuit from the cut/bite on his arm but the full-body wetsuit’s compression likely helped keep the bleeding contained and he believes the wetsuit prevented the shark from puncturing his skin deep below the surface.
I’ve never been attacked by a shark or have even come particularly close, at least not that I can remember. I was swimming in Bocas del Toro, Panama once and something bumped my leg forcefully but the water was so dark and full of seaweed I have no idea if it was a shark, big fish, or a log. And I was once diving off Staniel Cay in The Bahamas when I looked behind the boat to see about 15 interested nurse sharks who had all taken notice of the blood pouring out of my knee from when I scraped it against coral but nurse sharks are generally little beotches and there’s zero concern of an attack. Aside from that, all of my brushes with sharks have come from at least 25-50 feet away.
I really don’t know if I’d ever have the presence of mind to punch an apex predator in the face while being attacked. I’m always impressed by these people who are able to pause time with their lives on the line and think about the best path to survival. Like the guy who invented taxidermy after he was attacked by a leopard in Africa and stuck his damn fist down the leopard’s throat, while being attacked, and choked that leopard to death before preserving the animal and inventing taxidermy.
I feel like I wouldn’t be doing my job here unless I shared Phish‘s ‘Punch You In The Eye’ with you guys to finish this off today:
You’re welcome.