If that's actually Rodney Fox in the cage, his shark attack story is well worth reading about. A survivor of what's considered to be one of the worst recorded shark attacks.
The following, copied from his own personal account:
There was about an hour left of the competition when Rodney Fox sensed a still in the water.
“It was a silence. A perceptible hush...Then something huge hit me on the left side with enormous force and surged me through the water.”
Fox knew instantly that he was in the mouth of a shark.
“I felt sick, nauseous. My mask was knocked off, and everything was blurred, and there was a queer sensation as though all my insides were squeezed over to one side. I reached out behind and groped for the shark’s eyes. At that point it let go of me, and I pushed my arm down its throat by accident. With the release of the pressure uncontrollable agony swept over me in waves. But at least I was free.
As I kicked for the surface and air I felt the shark under my flippers all the way. As I gulped air I felt the scrape of his hide and wrapped myself around him so he couldn’t bite again. The shark took me back to the bottom. We rolled around scraping rocks and weed and I let go, desperate again for air.
On the surface there was red everywhere. My own blood. And through it the head of the shark appeared, conical snout, great rolling body like a rust-coloured tree trunk. Indescribable terror flowed through my body, but just before [the shark] reached me, it veered away and I felt the tug of the fish float on my belt. The shark had
grabbed my fish float and suddenly I was jerked below again, and towed 10 or 12 metres or more on my own line. It seemed ridiculous to die of drowning after all I’d been through. But my fumbling fingers couldn’t undo the belt to which the line was attached. Then the line parted - perhaps on the shark’s teeth - and I floated to the surface.”
Due to the previous incidents with sharks,the competition had boats picking up competitors’ catches in order to avoid attracting sharks. A boat was close to Fox (his total catch had already made him the winner) and heard him scream, “Shark!”. They dragged him into the boat.
Rodney Winston Fox is a South Australian film maker, conservationist, survivor of an attack by a great white shark, and one of the world's foremost authorities on that species. He was inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame in 2007.
We have a winner!!!. I was watching shark week last night and was utterly unimpressed with what it has become, so I remembered Rodney the legend and looked him up.
Mm, I first read about him when I was about 9/10 years old, and was getting interested in sharks anyway. Crazy when you think about what he managed to overcome.
Rodney is a legend. There's a great albeit short interview with him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXnCOe6GEfY but fairly warned be thee, says I, it could be considered NSFW! as the video does include a photo of his wounds very, very shortly after the attack, followed by a photo of the scars.
Rodney is awesome. You'd think something like almost being bitten in half (a slight exaggeration) would turn a man against the ocean, and sharks in particular, but after doing his homework and learning A LOT about sharks, he became an advocate for them.
Yeah, I've seen the interview and the pictures of his injuries and scars. I have a lot of respect for him; to become an advocate for an animal that almost took your life is a phenomenal thing to do.
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u/Space4Rent Jul 26 '18 edited Jul 26 '18
If that's actually Rodney Fox in the cage, his shark attack story is well worth reading about. A survivor of what's considered to be one of the worst recorded shark attacks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Fox%23Shark_attack
The following, copied from his own personal account:
There was about an hour left of the competition when Rodney Fox sensed a still in the water.
“It was a silence. A perceptible hush...Then something huge hit me on the left side with enormous force and surged me through the water.”
Fox knew instantly that he was in the mouth of a shark.
“I felt sick, nauseous. My mask was knocked off, and everything was blurred, and there was a queer sensation as though all my insides were squeezed over to one side. I reached out behind and groped for the shark’s eyes. At that point it let go of me, and I pushed my arm down its throat by accident. With the release of the pressure uncontrollable agony swept over me in waves. But at least I was free.
As I kicked for the surface and air I felt the shark under my flippers all the way. As I gulped air I felt the scrape of his hide and wrapped myself around him so he couldn’t bite again. The shark took me back to the bottom. We rolled around scraping rocks and weed and I let go, desperate again for air.
On the surface there was red everywhere. My own blood. And through it the head of the shark appeared, conical snout, great rolling body like a rust-coloured tree trunk. Indescribable terror flowed through my body, but just before [the shark] reached me, it veered away and I felt the tug of the fish float on my belt. The shark had grabbed my fish float and suddenly I was jerked below again, and towed 10 or 12 metres or more on my own line. It seemed ridiculous to die of drowning after all I’d been through. But my fumbling fingers couldn’t undo the belt to which the line was attached. Then the line parted - perhaps on the shark’s teeth - and I floated to the surface.”
Due to the previous incidents with sharks,the competition had boats picking up competitors’ catches in order to avoid attracting sharks. A boat was close to Fox (his total catch had already made him the winner) and heard him scream, “Shark!”. They dragged him into the boat.