A surfer in Australia said he punched a shark twice Friday to repel an attack, and the chaotic aftermath was captured on video.
Instagram footage by Graham Blade shows Dylan Nacass frantically screaming “Shark!” and later being accompanied toward shore by a fellow surfer as the shark looms nearby.
Nacass, who was bitten in the right thigh by an unknown type of shark, is clearly shaken in Blade’s footage. (We’ve attached a shorter 9News version, which highlights the shark’s location during the surfers’ paddle-in.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akmtAvPAJvg]
The encounter occurred at Bells Beach in Victoria. Nacass, 23, who received four stitches at a local hospital, said the predator backed off after he threw his punches.
But the shark did not swim away.
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Matt Sedunary, who helped Nacass, told 9News that he thought for an instant that Nacass was joking, but quickly paddled to his aid. (Sedunary is wearing the brown wetsuit.)
“I’m not going to just ditch this guy, and most people would do the same thing,” Sedunary said.
Sedunary added that he did not realize the shark was trailing them until he viewed Blade’s footage.
Other surfers in the Instagram footage don’t seem to realize that a shark is in their midst and Blade, at one point, yells “Go in! Go in! Right behind ya! Orange board, come in! It’s right next to ya! It’s in that wave!”
After Nacass and Sedunary reached the shore, some of the surfers paddled back out and Blade told For The Win Outdoors that “a few more guys got bumped by the shark.”
Blade said that people who viewed the footage told him the 6-foot predator looked like sevengill shark. This species can be aggressive when provoked, but has been implicated in only five unprovoked attacks, according to the International Shark Attack File.
Nacass, who is from France, told 9News that he intends to surf gain “when my leg is okay.”
–Images are courtesy of Graham Blade