The Luckiest Man In Australia
Although shark attacks really aren't all that common worldwide, when one occurs it is big news. Actually, that is probably why they are big news, actually. Even fewer shark attacks actually end in a fatality. The exception to that is attacks by great white sharks. Those attacks, though infrequent, are generally fatal because of the sheer size of the shark. So it is unusual to have a survivor.
Especially one that was partially swallowed head first by one of the giant predators.
Diver Eric Nerhus, 41, was underwater with his 25-year-old son and other divers off Cape Howe, near Eden on Australia's southeast coast, when the 3 metre (10 foot) shark attacked.
Rescuers earlier mistakenly reported his age as 25.
"He stated that he was head-first into the shark," a spokeswoman for Snowy Hydro SouthCare rescue service told Reuters after airlifting the diver to hospital.
"When he came to us he was conscious and alert but had a broken nose and lacerations to both sides of his torso and chest — bite marks all the way around," the spokeswoman said.
Nerhus told fellow divers he didn't see the shark coming as the water was so dirty that visibility was severely limited.
"It was black. He didn't see it coming, but he felt the bite and then started getting shaken, and that's when he knew he was in the mouth of the shark," said local diver Michael Mashado.
The shark bit Nerhus around the head first, crushing his face mask and breaking his nose, fellow diver and friend Dennis Luobikis told Reuters.
NOTHING BUT THE VEST
"He was actually bitten by the head…the shark swallowed his head," said Luobikis, adding a second bite by the shark saw it clench its jaw around Nerhus' torso.
"The brunt of the bite was taken by his lead-weight vest. Its all over your torso. Eric said to me at the wharf that his weight vest saved him," he said.
One hopes Nerhus went right out and bought a lottery ticket. This is one amazing story. And he is one lucky man.
UPDATE: Daily Mail coverage is here, includes some video footage.
By chuck, Tuesday, 23 January , 2007 @ 8:13 am
Not the first guy I’ve heard of who had his head in a great white’s mouth. There was a fellow in California who used to make a living diving for abalone who told me he was working a cliff face when, zap, he found his head in a sharks mouth. He frantically beat on the shark’s snout with the tools he was carrying to harvest the abalone and it let him go and swam off, never even bit down. I have the impression that the shark was, you know, just doing the shark equivalent of a wine tasting and decided the fellow was of inferior vintage and spit him out. Or maybe it was just having a bit of a laugh.