Close Call For One Aussie

I read about a Great White shark attack in Austrailia recently. An abelone diver was about 15-20 feet underwater looking for those pesky mollusks along a reef when he claimed out of nowhere a 15-foot Great White bit his head. It knocked out his oxygen mouthpeice.

This is one of the luckiest men on Earth that day. The shark bit his mask. But that wasn't it. Jaws repositioned his grip and half swallowed the man. Medical evidence, injuries and eyewitness accounts all relate this part - the guy was being swallowed. His head, right shoulder and arm and most of his torso were inside the shark. The Great White's teeth were clamped down on the guy's weight vest! Abelone divers wear weights to keep them grounded as they search. This actually acted as body armor. The man tells a tale of absolute horror. As he was feeling the sharks teeth grinding on his vest he was searching around in the fish's gullet with his free arm, pounding away. His left arm and shoulder were still outside of the shark's mouth and the guy actually felt along the shark's head and jammed his thumb in its eye as hard as he could. The monster coughed him up.

The diver found his mouthpiece, connected to him by the breathing tube and tried to take a breath and figure out where the surface was. He found it and started up, but the shark wasn't going away. He swam up slower than you would think to possibly fend off another attack. Reports say the diver was a black belt in some martial art, which really cracked me up - like that would even matter. Probably a 6-foot 180lb. karate-knowing land mammal underwater vs. the 15-foot, 2,500lb. greatest predatory ocean fish of our time. Yeah right. Anyway, the shark was circling below his legs as he tried to surface, expecting it to come up with full speed and force. Imagine how unbelievably terrifying this is?

The diver's son and nearby boaters hauled him right out of the water and got him to shore to medical attention. He is going to be fine, didn't lose a single limb. I would never set foot in so much as a puddle after that. The diver reported from the hospital that his fleeting thoughts while being almost swallowed were total disbelief that he was going to die as fish food. The top half of your body is down the throat of a Great White and it occurs to you that you are about to be bitten in half.

I have been transfixed in vicarious terror about sharks all my life. My first memory is of a shark. I spent countless hours reading about them, drawing them as a child. It boggles my mind that anyone would even attempt surfing in Cali or Austrailia. You look exactly like a seal from the shark's perspective. One second you are sitting on your surf board and the next - BAM! Your leg is gone below the knee. Humans are not accustomed to being hunted by any other species besides ourselves. Stories such as this always remind me that our societies are so busy and intricate and entertainment dominates our lives so much that we don't realize that this trip could end anytime. And you can' t take anything with you. No U-Hauls follow the herse to the cemetary.