A hammerhead shark found itself in need of rescue when it wandered a little too close to the beach. Beachgoers helped the stranded creature back into the ocean.
Twelve-year-old Samantha Wong captured the entire rescue attempt on video. Wong and her mother watched as three men attempted to pull the shark out to open ocean. At one point, the shark attempted to roll, and the rescuer quickly jumped out of the way.
“How long do you think it is?” Wong said in the video. “The shark is fat, dude.”
The hammerhead shark swallowed a fishing line.
The incident took place on Caswell Beach in Oak Island, NC. Wong and her mother vacationed in the area, and five minutes into their beach trip, Wong noticed a fin in the water.
“We were worried for the man in the water until we realized the shark was caught on their line and he was trying to release them,” Wong’s mother told NBC 12.
A fisherman on the beach had accidentally caught the shark when it took his bait. He reeled the shark into shallow water in an attempt to help the creature.
“The shark took a bite of the bait on the fisherman’s line,” Wong’s mother said. “Once caught, the fisherman pulled the shark into shallow water so they could cut the line. They worked together to release the shark who appeared to get his/her second wind and finally swam off.”
In the video, one of the men threw his arms up in the air in triumph. Meanwhile, another waded out into the water to give the shark a final push to freedom. Wong was worried the shark might turn around to attack its rescuers. But in a Free Willy moment, it kept swimming into open ocean.
In the video, Wong wished the shark well: “Bye sharkie, sharkie.”
In other shark related news, the coast guard had to open fire on a shark to save a group of swimmers. Everyone survived the encounter including the shark.
[H/T: NBC 12]
