Surfer bit on face by shark in Florida describes sensation falling somewhere between dog nip and “a bear trap closing in on me”

Ouch either way.

Florida’s New Smyrna Beach has the honorable distinction of being the “Shark Bite Capital of the World,” and it is, truly, well deserved. It seems as if there are near daily reports from the Central Florida gem of surfers being bit on hands, surfers being bit on feet, surfers being bit on buttocks, but never before have I read about surfers being bit on faces yet here we are.

A brave new day.

But let us meet Mark Sumsersett who hails from South Carolina though up in New Smyrna on a little surf vacation. He was out in the water, enjoying a little wedge here, a little wedge there, though noticing company in the water.

“I saw one (shark) right by me. I saw him cruising through the waves at me,” he told the local Fox News affiliate. I’m like,’What the heck? These guys out here don’t even care. They’re used to it.'”

And so he continued his surf, giving the lip a little smack here, giving the lip a little smack there, before coming undone.

That’s when disaster struck.

While the 39-year-old was underwater a shark bit him right on the face. “It was definitely a fight or flight situation,” he said and flighted to the shore where a woman called 911 and he was taken to a hospital and given over two dozen stitches.

But how does it feel to be bit on the face by a shark?

Summerset described thusly, “I got bit when I was a little kid by a dog, and it kind of felt like that, but like a bear trap closing in on me.”

There seems to be a wide gulf between those sensations but who am I to criticize for I have never been bitten on the face by a shark.

He will heal just fine, save “one or two scars,” which makes me wonder. What is the coolest scar in history?

I’ve got to go with Indiana Jones’s lip but Mark Summerset’s face might be way up there when all congealed.

Very chic.