A fisherman was left stranded on a remote island for hours, injured and bleeding, after suffering a “freak” shark attack while on a fishing trip with friends.
Adam Norton, a 32-year-old fisherman, had just moored his boat after a day of fishing and diving with his brother and friends near the Montebello Islands Archipelago off the Pilbara Coast in Western Australia. Looking to relax after his strenuous exercise, Norton hopped in the water to walk back to shore and grab another beer.
At this point, the relaxing evening suddenly became a living nightmare. As he waded through the waist-deep water, something latched onto his leg. The unfamiliar pressure quickly gave way to pain, and the fisherman realized that he had become the victim of a shark attack.
As the clear blue water around him slowly turned crimson, Norton picked up his pace toward the shore. The shark, however, followed, sinking its teeth into the fisherman once more, this time in the foot.
“I didn’t see the shark, and when I got into the water, it’s come up and bit me just below the knee,” Norton told Today. “I got rid of it and started to run and it’s come back and grabbed onto my foot.”
His leg and foot gushing blood, Norton finally made it to the safety of the beach. With his boat several yards back in the water, he pulled out his phone, using the flashlight to inspect the stretch of ocean between himself and his means of escape.
To the fisherman’s horror, not one but two predators he believed to be lemon sharks circled in the water near shore, one of which had already attacked him.
Fisherman Suffered Only Mild Injuries From Shark Attack
Already relaxing on the beach, his friends howled with laughter as he scrambled toward shore, assuming a fish was chasing him. It wasn’t until they spotted his mangled leg that they realized it was a shark attack.
“That is kind of what big brothers do, I guess,” Norton recalled. “But then they sprung into action pretty quick and helped stop the bleeding after that.”
For the next three hours, the fisherman and his friends remained trapped on the beach, terrified of another shark attack. In the water nearby, the sharks continued to circle. Eventually, a larger boat passed by, and the men successfully flagged it down for help.
At this point, the awaiting sharks finally gave up the hunt. The wait for Norton, however, was far from over. “Being so far off the coast, it was a bit of a logistical nightmare,” he explained. “They couldn’t land a helicopter on the island, so it was a seven-hour journey to the hospital.”
When the fisherman finally arrived at the hospital, doctors said that his injuries were extremely mild, as shark attacks go. He likely would have suffered greater injuries falling off a bike, for example. Even still, Norton says he’ll be staying out of the water for the foreseeable future.
“I was lucky that it missed major tendons,” he said. “But I got a severe laceration to my foot and up to my ankle, across my toes, and below my knee. It was quite a decent gash. I don’t think I will be going diving any time soon.”
