A professional surfer was attacked by a shark on national television last Sunday and, thankfully, lived to tell the tale.
According to The Guardian, three-time world surfing title holder Mick Fanning was competing for his fourth win during the J-Bay Open in South Africa when the scary ordeal happened.
He was being filmed live as he sat on his surfboard, waiting for his first wave, when a shark's dorsal fin appeared on screen.
He could be seen flailing around as he suddenly fell into the water. Even the commentators couldn't help but curse out while watching the live footage. As the seasoned surfer was being attacked by the shark, nobody could do anything but wait it out.
After the first wave hit, he finally surfaced and started swam away from the site as fast as he could. He also seemed to have escaped the shark unscathed.
"I just saw fins. I was waiting for the teeth to come at me as I was swimming. I punched it in the back," he shakily shared what happened on the speedboat right after getting pulled out of the water.
"All of [a] sudden, I just had this instinct that something was behind me," Fanning told the World Surf League in an interview. "And then all of a sudden, I felt like I started getting pulled under water. Then the [shark] came up, and I was on my board and it was like right there, and I saw the whole thing thrashing around."
Eventually, his leg rope reportedly broke which gave him enough time to swim away from the shark.
He later added that he was just so "stoked" that he came out of the ordeal alive. According to fellow champion surfer Kelly Slater's Instagram post about what happened, Fanning only got a scratch on his knuckle, probably from punching the shark.
The World Surf League promptly stopped the competition after the Australian surfer was attacked by the shark. Fanning received second place points and split the prize money with fellow surfer Julian Wilson who was also in the water at that time.
Watch the clip here.
