Saturday, August 27, 2005

when animals attack

Yesterday after work I went to a happy hour for a guy who's moving to California. So, somehow we got on the topic of sharks. A reporter who used to be an oceanographer told this incredible story about a great white shark attack when he and a bunch of other people were swimming off a research ship. Sample details: he felt the water lift as the shark swam under him. The shark swam by a 20-foot dinghy and stuck out beyond it on both ends. There was a tug-of-war over the last woman still in the water, and the shark got her leg. Someone emptied a .45 at the shark and it swam away. The nurse on board wrapped the two victims' wounds and gave them saline on the 24-hour trip to Easter Island. Both survived.

Four of us were totally transfixed for 20 minutes. It was probably the best story I've ever heard. The guy says he has a video of it - this happened during the party at the end of the research cruise, so someone on the ship had a video camera running. It eventually ended up on some tv show about animal attacks, which a friend recorded for him. (He says he's never watched the video.)

Not only was the story completely outstanding - seriously, my mouth hung open for most of it - we were all totally impressed by the guy's ability to just take over and tell it. I wish I was that cool.

2 comments:

Annie said...

holy COW, a 20+ foot shark??? Two people got personally chewed on by the thing????? I'm very impressed. And I am also impressed when people convincingly tell a great story in front of lots of people. I'll be he's had lots of practice with this story!

towwas said...

It was truly awe-inspiring. This guy has a lot of stories like that - I clearly need to spend more time with him. Perhaps I can ingratiate myself with his fiancee.