"(The Great White) hit me like a truck."
At the beginning of October, ghouls were treated to a viral video of a shark, initially thought be a bronze whaler but later identified as a Great White, lighting up a surfer getting into the waves at Kangaroo Island, a popular tourist destination seventy miles south-west of Adelaide.
Shortly before that shark attack, a Great White was photographed swimming under the town’s jetty.
Local surfer Lee Berryman described being hit by the Great White as “like a truck. It bit me around my back, buttock and elbow and took a chunk out of my board. I got a glimpse of the shark as it let go and disappeared.”
One month on from the hit, Berryman, who’d been surfing the wave he got belted at since he was a kid, has filled in a few more details about the attack.
First, he says he saw the shark the day before (“Its nose was close to me and so I just started belting it and it let go. As soon as I felt it grab me, I thought to myself: ‘That’s the little fucker that was here the other day!’”) and as he swam towards the beach two seals, along with their pup, escorted him to the beach.
Crucially, the foot-wide hatching of bite marks means he can’t sit still for any length of time, although he is able to walk, which is something.
Obvs, Great Whites frequent Kangaroo Island and attacks aren’t what you’d call wildly rare.
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
I suppose that unfamous people become famous overnight through events such as this. The sharks having a whale of a time. The victims well who knows. Who cares.
Was an attack in Hanalei yesterday too. Sharktober working overtime.
How do they know the seals were trying to escort him in? Maybe they were clinging to him so if the shark comes back they could use him as a sacrifice decoy, like they did in the first place.
They aren’t dumb mammals after all.
Meanwhile the shark is probably thinking… “I’ll seal ya later mate!”.
Oh man. This sharty wallowed for over 12 hours with no comments. You broke the streak.
Someone had to do it.
There’s always one jackoff in the group.