Gerrard Kaonga
A shark attack survivor has gone into the grim details of his horror experience being bitten by a bull shark while out surfing.
Dave Pearson was out surfing in Australia on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales in 2011 with friends in what would become a day to remember for all the wrong reasons.
He has confessed that during the attack he thought he would die as an almost 10-foot bull shark had managed to take a massive chunk out of his left arm.
Speaking to ABC on their podcast Conversations, he said: “I was in the rip, padding back out — as you do as a surfer — watching the next set of waves coming through.
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“And then the next thing, I just got hit by something. It was like being hit by a freight train.”
But things would only get worse from here as he described the gruesome details.
He said the sharks ‘top jaw’ was ‘wide open’ and that ‘its snout hit me in the right temple, which knocked me out and hurt my neck and back in the process'.
He added: “[My] left arm was going forward and ended up between the top jaw and the surfboard.
“My thumb had gone into its mouth, but the rest of my hand had gone on the outside so it didn't swallow my arm, luckily.
“The top teeth just proceeded to tear the forearm muscle straight off the bone, and the teeth took some tendons in my wrist and thumb and damaged that as well.”
Absolutely grim stuff.
After the animal attack, Pearson said that he climbed back on his surfboard but was aware his arm had been ‘torn open’ and that he was bleeding profusely.
At this point, he began thinking the very worst and had doubts about his survival despite the shark not actually severing his limbs.
He continued: “I knew I'd run out of air and that I was about to pass out and that I was just about to die and I went, 'Wow, today's the day I die.’
“It was a tough realization, that I actually knew the moment of my life ending. And then I thought, 'No, not today. You can't die.’”
By some miracle, Pearson managed to get back to the surface and get to the beach with the help of two men, as his friends did their best to stop the bleeding.
He also said he lost 40 percent of his blood and could even see his bones. Despite doctors telling him his arm would likely need to be amputated due to the damage done, they were able to save it.
To deal with the trauma of the attack he ended up setting up a Shark Bite survivors club Facebook group in 2013 where other survivors regaled their stories and helped each other cope.