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A Great White Shark's Insane Battle With A Diver Was Caught On A GoPro

by John Haltiwanger
Youtube

There are certain situations most people would never want to end up in, and battling with a great white shark is definitely one of them.

Tyler McQuillen, a 22-year-old college student, was diving off the coast of Santa Barbara, California what that exact scenario occurred. He captured the entire thing on GoPro, which you can view above.

McQuillen, who was in just 10 feet of water at the time, said he thought he was going to die.

At first, he thought it was just a friend playing a prank on him. But then he realized what it was and sprang into action.

He was armed with a speargun at the time, but dropped it as the shark came at him and bit his toes.

But he was ultimately able to retrieve the speargun, which probably saved his life. McQuillen used it to hit the shark, which then swam away and McQuillen headed back to shore as quickly as he could.

The shark's bite left the young man with two broken toes.

Reflecting on all of this, McQuillen said,

Extremely lucky to get out of this one alive. I saw blood around me and wasn't sure where it was from, so I swam as fast as I could back to shore. Got a laceration on my right foot in the initial hit, I didn't realized the shark had bit me. The shark bite broke two of my toes.

While this was definitely a terrifying incident, it's also worth noting that shark attacks are very rare.

To put this into perspective, things like dogs, lightning and spiders killed more humans than sharks in 2015.

Meanwhile, humans kill approximately 100 million sharks per year. We are far more of a danger to sharks than they are to us.

Citations: Intense video shows the moment a diver was attacked by a great white shark (Mashable)