The 34-year-old was competing in the final heat of a world tour event at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province on Sunday when a looming black fin appeared behind him.
Advertisement
As he was knocked off his board and desperately punched the shark to keep it at bay, Wilson paddled towards him in courageous actions that prompted his home state Queensland to nominate him for a bravery award.
Fanning said he felt “so insignificant” against the shark and that after losing his surfboard in the water, expected to lose a limb.
“I was swimming in and I had this thought “what if comes for another go at me”, so I turned around, so I could at least see it, and before I knew it the boat was there, the jetskis were there”.
Although this is the first time the surfer has experienced getting attacked by a shark, he said he will definitely come back to the waters.
The Australian professional surfer was back on home soil after being attacked by a shark while competing in South Africa.
“I think that the most shocking thing is that after you hear about the six attacks in North Carolina, okay, these are just swimmers”, Kilmeade said. To walk away from that, I’m just so stoked. Fanning told Fox Sports that he was just sitting on his board when he “felt something get stuck” in his leg rope and saw fins.
According to the Associated Press, Fanning’s mother, who watched the competition live on television in Australia, wept as she told Australian Broadcasting Crop.
He admitted he was now dealing with “an emotional mental sort of trauma” and that it would probably take weeks, if not months, to get over. “I punched it in the back“. Fanning, a three-time world champion who emerged unscathed from the incident, said it was a wonderful gesture.
Surfing legend Kelly Slater, a friend of Fanning’s, said, “I’m halfway between crying and laughing because he [Fanning] got so lucky…” “It just kept coming at my board”. The next time we were about to go sailing, I grabbed onto a pole on the dock and they literally had to pull me off of it, white knuckled and screaming.
Fanning was pulled from the water by a nearby rescue jet-ski that rushed to his aid. “When Sean was killed in the car accident, I didn’t see it. I saw this just in front of me”.
Julian Wilson was watching a nightmare unfold in slow motion and could do nothing to stop it happening. He said that nothing was wrong with him, but he was “just, like totally tripping out”. “I bet Mick Fanning is one hell of a relieved surfer”. As the seasoned surfer was being attacked by the shark, nobody could do anything but wait it out.
Advertisement
“I knew there was only one possible reason that would ever happen in a contest and that’s if someone got attacked by a shark”, Slater was quoted as saying.
