Just in: Video of surfer being attacked and dragged under water by shark at Banyans on Hawaii’s Big Island, “Wham! Nails him right there! He’s down, now he’s going to pop up and swim to that guy!”

"Grabbed him by the arm and pulled him under and when it pulled him under it whipped  around and hit him in the face with its tail. Broke his nose and his jaw and knocked his teeth out."

Yesterday, word came in that a surfer had been hit by a Great White while surfing Banyans, one of the most popular breaks in the Kailua-Kona area.

Whites in Hawaii are pretty rare, but only eight days earlier a free-diver had filmed a fifteen-foot Great White swimming towards him off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. 

Direct messages we saw from the surfer’s girlfriend indicate he identified the shark as a Great White and said it came at him with its mouth open and hit him so hard in the head it knocked out two of his teeth. The White dragged him under and, for whatever reason, let him go.

Other surfers in the area weren’t convinced it was a White,

That Banyan’s shark incident is assumed to have been a black tip reef shark that had been seen acting aggressive over the last week,” one wrote to BeachGrit. “Grabbed him by the arm and pulled him under and when it pulled him under it whipped around and hit him in the face with its tail. Broke his nose and his jaw and knocked his teeth out. The fireman said he had a nasty cut on his arm and he’ll have a good scar but that’s about the extent of it… The kid said that it was a White shark but everyone who was around said no, and the firemen who responded said no. They also said that if you rewind the surf cam back you can see it happen.”

Ah, let’s rewind! Nice man, below, has provided commentary.

 

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