Actual nightmare material…
A woman who narrowly survived a shark attack has described the traumatic moment – and why she jumped right back into shark-infested waters just weeks later.
Free diver Anika Craney had been swimming in the Australian waters by the Queensland coast when a predator went for her.
Anika had been on a boat called Barefoot and was taking a new member out into the water with her when she had a sneaky suspicion something wasn’t right.
Speaking to Channel 4, Anika said the first thing she noticed when she got into the water was how low the visibility was.
“[It] was really murky, we barely saw a little fish beyond our arm’s length,” she said, prompting her to urge her companion to head back towards the boat.
However, the return trip almost cost Anika her life.
Anika said it was a traumatic ordeal (Channel 4/YouTube)
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“I was looking at the sandy sea floor and I saw a shadow, just in my peripheral vision so I looked up and I saw this shadow emerge from the murky water and it became clear to me, it was a shark,” she continued. “My first reason was not of fear, it was of curiosity, because we’ve been swimming with sharks a lot.”
Yet Anika grew cautious of it as she noticed it was swimming directly towards her.
“Its behaviour was not comfortable to me,” she added. “I looked the shark in the eye and I saw that it was looking straight at me.”
In a bid to protect herself, she moved around and put her fins in front of her body, but it didn’t help.
“Then I felt the impact. It hit me so fast, I didn’t even quite realize what had happened,” she said.
“I felt this pressure in my left leg and honestly I thought that it has just hit me with its head and so my instinctual reaction was to kick it off.
“It wasn’t until I saw the blood pooling around me that I actually realized it had bitten me, so I grabbed my leg and I started screaming for help, not just because I was losing what seemed like a lot of blood but I also realized the shark might come back and bite me again and if it did, I might not survive this.”
She could’ve died (Channel 4/YouTube)
Gripped with ‘so much fear’ that ‘everything became ‘white and foggy,’ Anika’s survival instincts kicked in.
“I realized my life was in danger and if I wanted to survive this, I had to give it everything I had to get out of the water.”
She swam ‘as hard and fast’ as she possibly could – all the while traumatised by the thought of the shark returning for another taste.
“That loud part of me thought, ‘you’re about to die,'” she said.
Fortunately, a woman on a paddle board was near enough and rescued Anika, but she says in that moment she felt like she just ‘wanted to slip unto the water and go to sleep.’
Fortunately, she didn’t and people on the beach came running to her aid, including a man who gave her leg a tourniquet until she was air lifted to hospital.
She’s not been afraid to go back into the water (Channel 4/YouTube)
“I was screaming at these paramedics, ‘I love you, you’re amazing.’ I felt like just really happy to be alive,” she added.
It later transpired the shark bit the lower part of her left leg down to the bone, leaving behind a couple of teeth in her tibia all while severing an artery.
Anika spent eight days in hospital recovering – and after two months when it was healed, jumped right back into the water.
“I actually chose to swim with sharks and I’m glad that I did. It was a really wonderful way to make peace with this experience,” she concluded.Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Channel 4 Documentaries
Topics: Animals, Australia, Channel 4, Life, World News, Shark
Published 11:40 24 Apr 2025 GMT+1
Wife of man killed in shark attack reveals his heartbreaking final act moments before tragic death
The father-of-four died when a shark attacked him while snorkelling in Israel
The wife of the man who was killed in a shark attack this week has revealed his heartbreaking final moments before his death.
Disturbing footage captured the moment onlookers from Hadera beach in northwest Israel witnessed a man battle a predator beneath the waves before disappearing.
Members of the public made frantic calls to the authorities as the attack unfolded on April 21, saying someone had been ‘bitten’ by a shark and was ‘screaming’.
The authorities conducted an extensive search through the waters for the missing man and tragically confirmed the next day on April 22 that human remains had been discovered.
Police and the victim’s wife then confirmed it was Barak Tzach, a 45-year-old father of four from the city of Petah Tikva, who had died in the attack.
His grief-stricken wife, Sarit Tzach, has since revealed his final moments in a bid to put vicious rumors to bed.
Shark swims past Israeli before attack
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On Facebook, she said Tzach had entered the water off the Mediterranean coast with snorkeling gear and an underwater camera.
She said he was no stranger to swimming in the sea, and he wanted to ‘dive and document the sharks’.
The endangered dusky and sandbar sharks are known to frequent the waters near Hadera, and although they are not usually aggressive to humans, can become aggravated by the activity caused by swimmers.
The situation has been made worse with floods of visitors flocking to the site to catch a glimpse, where some have even gone so far as to try to touch and feed the predators.
Officials have warned against swimming with the wild animals and have rolled out a swimming ban on the beach, though clearly to no avail.
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Sarit said he had swam that particular stretch before but was keeping a respectful distance.
She wrote: “Barak entered the water to dive and document the sharks, not to feed them or play with them.
“With deep sorrow and wordless pain, we announce the death of our husband and father. I would like to put an end to the rumours that are being spread around the circumstances of his death and tell the truth.
“On the day of his death, Barak arrived at the beach after a day of work, as he often did. He entered the sea equipped with a snorkel, mask, fins, and a GoPro camera – without anything else, and certainly not with fish or bait, contrary to rumours.”
She claimed her husband would ‘gently’ use the stick of his camera to push the sharks and gain some ‘distance’ from them and that a fisherman accompanying him confirmed Tzach was not trying to feed, agitate, or touch the animals.
And heartbreakingly, Tzach was carefully swimming away from the creatures when he was attacked.
She explained: “In a conversation I had with a fisherman who witnessed the incident, I was told that he swam alongside a shark and later moved slightly away in a more open direction.
“He filmed the sharks from a distance but didn’t touch or feed them. When they started to get too close to him, he used the GoPro’s stick to gently push them away. The fisherman called him back to shore, and Barak started swimming slowly toward him – and then he was attacked.”
In the wake of the attack, a spokesperson for the local police force urged the public to ‘avoid entering the water and coming into contact with the sharks’.Featured Image Credit: Facebook
Topics: Israel, Shark, Animals, World News, Nature
Published 19:50 21 Feb 2025 GMT
Shark attack survivor describes what it really feels like after his arm was mauled by one
The man could see his own bones after he was mauled by a 10-foot bull shark
A shark attack survivor has gone into the grim details of his horror experience being bitten by a bull shark while out surfing.
Dave Pearson was out surfing in Australia on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales in 2011 with friends in what would become a day to remember for all the wrong reasons.
He has confessed that during the attack he thought he would die as an almost 10-foot bull shark had managed to take a massive chunk out of his left arm.
Speaking to ABC on their podcast Conversations, he said: “I was in the rip, padding back out — as you do as a surfer — watching the next set of waves coming through.
“And then the next thing, I just got hit by something. It was like being hit by a freight train.”
Dave Pearson was involved in a gruesome attack by a massive shark (WENDELL TEODORO/AFP via Getty Images)
But things would only get worse from here as he described the gruesome details.
He said the sharks ‘top jaw’ was ‘wide open’ and that ‘its snout hit me in the right temple, which knocked me out and hurt my neck and back in the process’.
He added: “[My] left arm was going forward and ended up between the top jaw and the surfboard.
“My thumb had gone into its mouth, but the rest of my hand had gone on the outside so it didn’t swallow my arm, luckily.
“The top teeth just proceeded to tear the forearm muscle straight off the bone, and the teeth took some tendons in my wrist and thumb and damaged that as well.”
Absolutely grim stuff.
After the animal attack, Pearson said that he climbed back on his surfboard but was aware his arm had been ‘torn open’ and that he was bleeding profusely.
At this point, he began thinking the very worst and had doubts about his survival despite the shark not actually severing his limbs.
He continued: “I knew I’d run out of air and that I was about to pass out and that I was just about to die and I went, ‘Wow, today’s the day I die.’
“It was a tough realization, that I actually knew the moment of my life ending. And then I thought, ‘No, not today. You can’t die.’”
Dave Pearson was lucky to not lose his arm in the attack (WENDELL TEODORO/AFP via Getty Images)
By some miracle, Pearson managed to get back to the surface and get to the beach with the help of two men, as his friends did their best to stop the bleeding.
He also said he lost 40 percent of his blood and could even see his bones. Despite doctors telling him his arm would likely need to be amputated due to the damage done, they were able to save it.
To deal with the trauma of the attack he ended up setting up a Shark Bite survivors club Facebook group in 2013 where other survivors regaled their stories and helped each other cope.Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/WENDELL TEODORO
Topics: Animals, Shark, News, US News
Updated 12:19 17 Jul 2023 GMT+1Published 11:29 15 Jul 2023 GMT+1
Massive humpback whale saves marine biologist from shark which she thought was going to kill her
Occurring near Muri Beach, marine biologist Nan Hauser was rescued from a shark by a friendly humpback whale.
A marine biologist has relived the incredible moment she escaped from a shark – thanks to a 50,000-pound humpback whale.
Captured off the coast of the Cook Islands, Nan Hauser’s rescue was even filmed as part of her research.
Her story will now be featured as part of the National Geographic Sharkfest programs, with viewers sinking their teeth into a range of aquatic shows.
National Geographic
Ironically, the marine biologist was more fearful of the huge whale before her close encounter with the humpback.
“Somehow I always sort of knew, with my job, that I’d probably be killed by a whale. So, I thought is this the day?” the 69-year-old explained to camera crews.
However, there was another danger lurking just beneath the surface, which the scientist had noticed.
“I suddenly realised that the shark is coming up just at me right below,” she recalled, adding: “…this is a serious situation, and I wanted to get out of the water.”
Caught between the 50,000-pound humpback whale and a 15-foot tiger shark, the scientist made a desperate bid to reach the surface.
Trying to avoid the whale’s pectoral fins, the scientist struggled to get away from the approaching predator.
National Geographic
Despite Hauser’s hesitations, though, the humpback turned out to be a gentle giant and even pushed her towards the surface.
The marine biologist then emerged from the sea as she clung to the whale’s head, in total disbelief.
“’I looked and he was right there next to me, protecting me… And I cried,” she recalled, as she shouted to her colleagues for help.
Scrambling onboard, the whale then said a final goodbye, spraying the water from its blowhole before it sank beneath the waves.
National Geographic
Even the marine biologist was confused over the mammal’s behaviour, with the whale treating her like a young calf and protecting her from the predator.
Some have called this behaviour a ‘spillover’, meaning that the humpback may have saved Hauser to assert dominance over the tiger shark.
By doing so, the whale may have ensured the 15-foot shark won’t return when there are young calves present.
However, it hasn’t detracted from the incredible rescue with Hauser still in awe of her humpback protector.
Meanwhile, other whales haven’t been so altruistic – with a group of orcas purposely sinking boats off the coast of Gibraltar.
Whilst no one was injured during the attack, the unusually aggressive behaviour has concerned scientists and sailors in the area.
Saved from a Shark will be shown as part of the annual Sharkfest event on National Geographic WILD on Monday 17th July at 8pm.Featured Image Credit: National Geographic
Topics: Animals, Weird, Shark, World News
