iStockphoto / RugliG
The Summer is in full swing down here in Florida. I’m on the Gulf Coast myself in Sarasota/Siesta Key and our unofficial ‘shark season’ is actually sort of winding down already. It coincides with the peak tarpon fishing season which is nearly over, but on the East Coast of Florida things are getting real.
There were two ‘unprovoked’ shark attacks over the weekend, one in New Smyrna Beach which is the Shark Attack Capital of the World and one in Jacksonville Beach where I spent my 4th of July. We are going to take a look at the absurd ‘Florida Man‘ circumstances of the second encounter.
23-year-old professional surfer Frank O’Rourke was bitten by a shark on Saturday and handled it exactly like I’d expect a pro surfer from Florida to handle it. After realizing he’d been bitten and snapping back to reality, he paddled into the beach.
Word quickly spread of his shark encounter with people offering to buy him free drinks for surviving the shark bite, so instead of heading to the hospital to seek treatment for his wounds he went to the bar and started drinking.
Here he is describing the shark encounter and how his world was flipped upside down in an instant:
and
Here’s a quick rundown of the action from the NYPost:
Shark comes out of the water and grabs onto my arm, right by my elbow. Kinda tugs a little bit and thrashes,” he told ABC News.
“I guess it tasted me and was like, ‘Nope,’” he joked.He stunned friends by refusing to go to the hospital, instead heading to a bar to milk his newfound notoriety.
“He immediately went to a bar ’cause he was like, ‘I got bit by a shark,’ and people were like, ‘I’ll buy you drinks!’ So he went and hung out at the pier,” his friend RJ Berger told News4Jax with a laugh.“It was kind of panic, like, ‘Did that just happen?’” Berger said. “It kind of took him a couple seconds to gather himself and realize, like, ‘Wow, I just got bit by a shark.’ And then we all went into the beach.”
This is a tactic I can totally respect. Instead of going to the hospital where they’ll kill any potential infection with alcohol he went to the bar to do the work himself.
The only thing that really unnerves me about this encounter is how this guy, who spends the majority of his life in the water, doesn’t appear to be concerned about all of that potentially nasty bacteria that could’ve been living in the shark’s mouth. If that was me I’d want some powerful antibiotics to kill any potential infection before it started.
I saw some tweet this morning from The Onion that everyone should keep in mind as news of these shark encounters spreads across mainstream media. The headline reads ‘Report: Sharks To Only Kill 10 People This Year But One Of Them Will Be You’ and it’s spot on.
Shark attacks are INSANELY RARE but they are always picked up by the news and sensationalized. Just don’t let that dissuade you from swimming this Summer.