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NARRATOR: Sharing the ocean with nature, is not without risks.
One of the most frightening is a shark attack.
DUSTY: The top half of her leg’s gone.
NARRATOR: And on the frontline surfers and
others using boards make up over 50% of attacks.
MARJORIE: We have to get out of the water, I’m bleeding.
TOMAS: You don’t think it’s real, blood everywhere.
MAN: Oh, shark!
NARRATOR: It’s Spring, 2017.
Surfer, Dusty Phillips and his partner,
Leeanne Ericson have been together for
three and a half years.
As a weekend break they chose San Onofre Beach.
A magnet for swimmers, surfers...
And sharks.
Some 60 varieties swim off the coast of California.
Mostly harmless to humans.
But lurking in the depths.
The tiger shark and great white.
LEEANNE (off-screen): It was so beautiful that weekend.
The water so blue and sparkly.
All the guys had their boards, I was the only one swimming.
DUSTY: Leanne and I were about 100 yards out floating around
in the water having our fun.
LEEANNE: We had noticed a sea lion had surfaced to my left
and looked right at us and I looked at Dusty and I said,
"That sea lion looks a little panicked to me,"
and then right away he dipped back down under and was gone.
DUSTY: I pull the board out from under to turn to
paddle for a wave.
LEEANNE: I started to turn away back to shore to swim in.
DUSTY: As soon as I turn to start to paddle.
LEEANNE: A shark had grabbed me by my right upper thigh,
I felt this razor blades go into my leg,
I screamed as loud as I could.
DUSTY: And the scream disappeared under the water.
A scream that piercing,
you know sends chills up your spine.
LEEANNE: I remember thinking about Dusty not knowing
where I was or what was happening to me.
DUSTY: I looked around, waited, waited, waited.
She never surfaced, wasn’t nowhere to be found, she’s gone.
LEEANNE: I remember trying to push the shark off of my leg.
I went maybe 25, 30 feet, it was deep enough that I could
notice the, the light change and it was getting darker and
darker the further I was going down.
DUSTY: I jump off my board and look for her under the water
and she wasn’t under the water.
LEEANNE: It was very quiet and calm and
peaceful it was under the water.
The only thing I could find was its eye
and so my whole hand just went into his eye and
I stuck it in as deep as I could
and it was super-soft; it felt like I stuck my hand
in a cup of Jell-o and then the shark jerked its face away
from me and I was swimming to the surface.
DUSTY: I pick her up out of the water to set her up on
my surfboard and the top half of her leg’s gone.
That’s when ... got real.
LEEANNE: I was just in a red blood pool and
little bits of my fat was floating around in the water.
DUSTY: I yell multiple times, "Shark, help!"
LEEANNE: Everybody was still playing football on the beach,
the kids were still running around.
Nobody knew what was happening.
DUSTY: We get into waist to knee-high deep water,
and we are getting some people coming out and helping us.
PARAMEDIC (over phone): Paramedic!
What is the emergency.
WOMAN (over phone): Somebody was bit by a shark.
NARRATOR: Lucky for Leeanne, there’s a marine base nearby
with an emergency medical team ready to go.
DUSTY: By the time we get her up onto the beach
the paramedics are pulling in.
So, we are literally setting her down in a cloud of dust.
DAVE: She wasn’t even really bleeding anymore,
I mean, at that point she had really lost all her blood,
she was just completely pale white.
JUSTIN: And actually lifted up her leg at one time and
my first thought was, uh, that there is a chance her leg
could come off, there was no way she’d save that leg.
DUSTY: What’s going through my head is like, "This is it."
You know I’d never told her I loved her before,
till then.
LEEANNE: And that was the first time he’s ever told me that,
and I was thinking like, this of all times,
this is the time that you pick to tell me that you love me,
of all the times in the world,
but you know at least if I were to die at least
I would have heard it.
NARRATOR: Leeanne is airlifted to a nearby hospital
clinging to life.
DUSTY: The medic tells me, uh, they induced her into a coma,
we gotta’ go now.
I’m sitting in the helicopter staring down at my family and
friends scurrying around the campground.
None of them know where we are going,
what condition she’s in, what condition I’m in.
That was tough for me.
NARRATOR: Leeanne’s attacker is likely a juvenile,
three to four meter great white shark.
Fully grown adults can reach up to six meters.
Great whites are devastating hunters.
Reaching an attack speed of 40 kilometers an hour,
snapping their jaws with a strength of up to two tons.
RYAN (off-screen): If you had to imagine the perfect predator:
performance, size, speed, teeth, intelligence;
then it would be the great white shark.
If they want to hunt seals they will adopt one strategy
and they burst up.
Even juvenile, smaller, two and a half to three-meter,
ten-foot white sharks, if given the opportunity,
will have a go at bigger prey.
NARRATOR: As surfers often wear black wetsuits they could
be mistaken for a seal the outcome could be deadly.
RYAN (off-screen): The great white, they have that dentition which is
that their teeth act like saws to pull big chunks out of prey.
It's very easy for them to hit arteries,
to open up arteries and the reason that people die
is because of blood loss.
NARRATOR: Since 2001, sharks have attacked 55 people
along the Californian coast.
In Leeanne’s case, there may be a logical explanation.
RYAN (off-screen): In California, the sea lions
are protected and the population is growing,
the great whites are also protected.
The likelihood of those two species coming into contact,
is growing every year.
If you choose to go and swim around these sea lions,
where you know great whites are,
I would say it’s not a really smart move.
RYAN (off-screen): The great white is patrolling,
what he’s looking for is a silhouette of a sea lion.
If you’re looking for an explanation of why that
great white shark attacked Leeanne, the fact that she was
swimming in an area abundant with sea lions,
then the explanation is probably mistaken identity.
(machine beeping)
NARRATOR: Leeanne spent nine weeks in hospital
undergoing multiple surgeries,
blood transfusions and skin grafts.
(machine beeping)
DOCTOR: I'm just going to put it here.
LEEANNE: Most of my hamstring and my glutes are gone,
my quad is gone.
DOCTOR: It looks good, I think this is the best outcome,
he didn’t go deep enough to get to the bone.
LEEANNE: Pretty much everything is gone.
Probably at the seven-week mark is when I finally started
looking back at my leg, at what it looked like.
DOCTOR: There is some here.
LEEANNE: That was the graft that went over the nerve.
LEEANNE: See this? DOCTOR: Yeah.
LEEANNE: This is where... DOCTOR: Right here.
LEEANNE (off-screen): They took the skin graft from my left leg to put over
my right to close the wound.
DOCTOR: Good, that’s really good.
LEEANNE: And I said, "Oh my God,
thank God you didn’t take my leg off."
there’s no cushion over my hip joint anymore so laying on my side...
I can only do that for so long,
I can only sit for so long, I can only stand for so long.
NARRATOR: Besides mistaken identity,
there’s another factor linked to attacks on surfers.
And that’s time of day.
♪ ♪
Considered the birthplace of big-wave surfing, Hawaii,
is known for some of the best waves on the planet.
But here to, there‘s danger below,
with 120 attacks in the past 25 years.
WOMAN (off-screen): Oh my God!
MAN (off-screen): Oh, he’s going to swim right into it.
NARRATOR: Many from the second most deadly shark species
known to kill humans.
The tiger shark.
♪ ♪
Brazilian born, Marjorie Mariano has been
surfing Oahu island for over 20 years.
MARJORIE: I kind of made my life focus on surfing
because I consider myself a surfaholic.
I live and breathe for surfing.
NARRATOR: In December, 2017, Marjorie’s world shattered.
REPORTER (over TV): A community is in mourning tonight after a
well-known mom was brutally murdered inside a north shore home.
MARJORIE: I had bad news that my best friend Thelma
got murdered.
She was my surf partner,
my friend.
The most important person in my life
here in Hawaii.
NARRATOR: Heartbroken, Marjorie honors her lost friend
with a sunset surf on the very last day of 2017.
(birds chirping)
MARJORIE: My plan was to go and paddle out to surf
to cleanse and forget the whole sadness
at the incident with my best friend.
So I went surf to get myself
a little bit stronger.
I decided I’m gonna go just for 30 minutes
just to do closure this year
and I am gonna go for Thelma.
I turn and try to catch a wave.
Suddenly my life changed
180 degrees.
Something hit me.
I never in my mind thought it was a shark.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: New Year’s Eve, 2017.
Marjorie Mariano just lost her best friend to a brutal murder.
She hopes a sunset surf will bring her some peace.
But tragedy strikes again.
MARJORIE: Suddenly my life changed
in a matter of seconds.
I never see fin.
I never see shadow.
I felt something really hard on my leg.
It was just like boom.
I was in a shark jaws.
GRAY (off-screen): We heard Marjorie scream,
we turned immediately and saw the shark latched onto
Marjorie trying to turn her left and right.
MARJORIE: Somehow my body reacted to pull it away.
But when I turned, I faced the shark.
It was eye to eye.
I felt that I was looking into his soul.
I was horrified feeling I'm on my own.
NARRATOR: As suddenly as the shark appeared it’s gone.
Surfers Gray Spainhour and James Tongg are 50 meters away.
GRAY: When we got to Marjorie, I could see that her, her leg
had been bitten just below her left buttock.
She was hysterical, she was screaming,
she was frightened.
We knew that we had to get her to shore fast.
MARJORIE: My mind was just thinking the shark's coming back.
We have to get out of the water
I‘m bleeding.
GRAY (off-screen): James said, give me the leash,
and so I got into the water, took off the leash,
gave it to James where he began to tie the tourniquet.
MARJORIE: And the next thing I know I felt
a really, really hardcore pain.
Harder than the shark biting my leg.
NARRATOR: Nearby, a paddle-boarder hears the commotion.
He has the one thing that could help save Marjorie’s life.
Grabbing the paddle board,
Marjorie quickly gets to shore.
Within minutes an ambulance races her to Honolulu hospital.
Surgeons get the bleeding under control just a few hours
before the New Year rings in.
MARJORIE: Happy 2018 everyone.
I am okay, I’m alive.
I can hear a little bit of the fireworks
going on outside the hospital.
It was good to look at the clock
and see that you know I passed that
death to life again, you know, I survive.
MARJORIE: Woo-hoo!
(laughs)
I made it to 2018!
(cheering)
NARRATOR: Marjorie was likely bitten by a tiger shark.
One of the main culprits of shark attacks on surfers in Hawaii.
STEPHEN (off-screen): Tiger sharks tend to be solitary hunters.
They are feeding on large prey items,
and they have the, the jaws and the hardware that
enable them to take those big prey items.
But they‘re also not picky, they’ll eat whatever they can.
NARRATOR: Known as the garbage can of the ocean,
the tiger shark has the hardware to chew up anything
it finds, even license plates and old tires.
STEPHEN: So here you have a set of jaws from, uh, about a
12-foot tiger shark and you can see you know, the, the numbers of teeth
that are here and the size of the teeth,
you know, they’re big, they’re heavily serrated,
even the serrations have serrations on them.
As that jaw is moving, it’s, it's slicing across and
these become little blades like on a chainsaw.
And not only do they have a lot of teeth,
they have lots of replacement teeth behind,
so they always have a full set of teeth rolling in.
When they encounter soft, squishy humans,
easily able to get severely damaged by
such strong powerful jaws.
NARRATOR: On Marjorie’s sunset surf, time and
location worked against her.
Tiger sharks are nocturnal hunters, and,
she was surfing in an area inhabited by sea turtles.
STEPHEN(off-screen): So a sharks swimming along
and towards dusk or at night,
they see something vaguely on the surface,
it’s going to come up and investigate.
You’re sitting on this board with your arms off
to the side which look like little flippers,
and a shark coming up from below might mistake this
person on a board for a turtle that is flapping around,
and give you an investigatory bite.
NARRATOR: While many shark attacks on surfers,
seem to happen through mistaken identity.
Other attacks could be deliberate.
With over 2.800 kilometers of rugged coastline,
South Africa is a surfing paradise.
But it has its dangers.
Each year sharks are attracted to a dramatic marine event.
The Sardine Run.
Hordes of sea birds, seals and dolphins penetrate and
scatter the tightly packed bait balls.
It’s also a free-for-all for sharks.
And among them, the third species known to kill surfers,
the bull shark.
With a reputation for aggression, it is known
for many of South Africa’s shark fatalities.
In July the Sardine Run ends.
Bellies’ full, many sharks leave the area.
Much to the relief of local surfers.
Denver and Kristy Struwig are just home from their honeymoon.
It’s perfect timing to celebrate with a surf.
KRISTY: We were on a total high about being married.
Our main aim that Friday was to
spend time together in the sea.
DENVER: We were young.
Just an exciting time, a happy time.
We just surfed and surfed and surfed.
We normally judge the shark activity
and the sardine run
by like how many birds are diving, the gannets.
This day was pretty mellow.
KRISTY: We couldn’t believe our luck that the sea was
as calm, as blue, and as beautiful as it was.
NARRATOR: After a few hours Kristy heads back to shore.
Denver waits for one more wave, with his friend Eric.
DENVER: I was sitting there and then...
this shark just swims straight underneath.
And, I’m like, what this is not happening.
And the shark just does this big u-turn
up around the side
and the shark disappeared.
As I put my legs down
the shark hits me
and swam me down to the bottom.
NARRATOR: The past decade has seen more shark attacks than any previous.
Newly-weds, Denver and Kristy Struwig are riding
the waves in South Africa.
But, tragedy strikes, leaving Denver fighting for his life.
DENVER: I remember seeing the shark‘s
nose and head like on my leg.
It was like surreal.
And I remember just shouting,
I’ve just been bitten, I’ve just been bitten.
KRISTY: All of a sudden we saw the board
just being flipped in the air.
We didn’t realize at that stage
who had been attacked.
Selfishly, I immediately thought
oh I hope it’s not Denver.
DENVER: As I turned around and looked for my board
I saw my board literally 10 meters away from me.
He had bitten through my leg rope.
And then...
the shark came back
but through the back of my shoulder like
and his head was basically next to my head.
And just bit down again
and swam me down to the bottom.
I don’t remember the point where he
actually let me go,
but I do remember like resurfacing.
KRISTY: When I realized it was him
my heart just sank.
It was a horrible feeling of
being completely helpless.
NARRATOR: Denver makes it to shore.
By luck a paramedic and a doctor happen to be nearby.
He suffers a deep laceration on his inner thigh,
narrowly missing the femoral artery.
KRISTY: I was just hoping that
that it wasn’t critical because
we had just got married there was no way
something could happen two weeks,
three weeks after our wedding.
It just wasn’t possible.
NARRATOR: Denver suspects a bull shark is to blame.
RYAN: One of the main senses that bull sharks have is that
ability to detect splashing and movement in the water.
(muffled splashing)
If you wanna attract in a bull shark you take a little plastic bottle down and
start squeezing it and cracking the plastic bottle.
That type of vibration in the water,
is essentially the signals that a surfer can give off if
they’re splashing around at the surface.
NARRATOR: But, another species may be the real culprit.
RYAN (off-screen): When I look at this habitat and I look at
the time of year there is a definitely a chance that it was a great white.
The great whites will be been patrolling this coast-line all of the time
and unfortunately that is also the area where
surfers spend a lot of time.
NARRATOR: Examining the bite marks may give a clue to Denver’s attacker.
DENVER: Okay, so it’s quite distinct, um,
that was his, like, left side of the jaw.
And then his...
...rest of his jaw came back, right through to the back.
You can see this was the bad one
obviously, with the femoral artery inside there,
which was very lucky.
RYAN: Aye, aye, aye.
DENVER: That was the first one.
So the second one was, I’ll just show you,
So you can see the spacing.
So, one, two, so that was the three.
RYAN: Oh wow. But these ones here are the intriguing ones,
because you find,
bull sharks have very thin,
piercing lower jaw, but these, these scars are,
you know you can see they’re spaced,
and they’re long, and they’re very clean,
with the great whites they have a lot more serrations on
these lower jaws that they do mimic the sawing action,
and if this is definitely the lower jaw,
it looks more great white than it does bull shark.
(seagulls squawking)
RYAN (off-screen): The moment I saw those bites on his shoulder
I am absolutely sure it was a great white.
Why a shark like that would bite Denver?
There‘s many reasons, it could have been hungry,
it could have been a long time since it left a seal colony.
It was willing to investigate this big item in the water to
see if it was potential food.
RYAN (off-screen): It was a situation of Denver being in the wrong place at
the wrong time and meeting the wrong shark.
But that is part of going into nature.
NARRATOR: From South Africa,
great whites can travel huge distances,
making a 11,000 kilometer journey to West Australia.
Another hotspot for shark attacks.
With 13 fatalities over 100 years...
The reason for making this epic journey?
The richest food source imaginable.
Often found right next to the surf-line.
It’s April 15th, 2018.
Surfer, Alex Travaglini is at his local surf break in Gracetown.
ALEX: I had been working for 20 days in a row,
so I was, I was pretty eager to get out and get a few waves.
NARRATOR: But today, fellow surfers have bad news.
ALEX (off-screen): Apparently someone had seen a fin pretty close.
It was likely that shark was probably long gone.
Then suddenly there was perfect waves,
I thought well, it’s probably safe by now,
pretty keen for a surf.
I managed to catch a wave, I was very happy with that,
so I was keen to get some more,
as I was waiting I was having a chat with my friend and
then I saw him get pretty startled.
I never saw the shark before it bit.
The pain just radiated my whole body.
NARRATOR: Western Australia has seen more shark attacks in
the last decade than any before.
But surfer, Alex Travaglini,
can’t resist todays perfect waves.
But, out of nowhere, he’s under attack.
ALEX: I was not expecting it at all.
I didn’t see anything coming.
TOMAS: All we could see was like a splashing and
he kinda of fighting with the shark.
ALEX: The shark was underneath the board,
and all I was trying to do was push the surfboard and try and
keep the shark away from me.
TOMAS: He was so focused on Alex, he wanted Alex.
ALEX (off-screen): And it’s popped it’s head out of the water,
and looking at me and it started circling me again,
my emotion went from being shocked to being angry,
and I just swore at the shark.
And then it started coming back at me.
I grabbed my surfboard and pushed it against its nose.
I’m not ready to let you eat me.
It probably had decided that it had had enough.
The last thing I remember was seeing the shark swimming
towards the horizon the leash was in its mouth.
(camera clicking)
NARRATOR: By chance a local photographer manages
to capture the scene.
Badly injured, and without his surfboard,
Alex is now stuck 50 meters from shore.
Nearby, a fellow surfer, instead of fleeing the scene
comes to the rescue.
Together they catch a wave,
with Alex body-surfing back to the shoreline.
TOMAS: We were all running to help,
we can’t believe what is going on,
you don’t think it’s real, blood everywhere.
NARRATOR: As Alex lies bleeding on the shore,
surfers use their leashes as tourniquets on Alex’s legs.
TOMAS: Alex was pretty calm, he didn’t panic, he didn’t blink,
I think we were screaming more than he was.
NARRATOR: A helicopter is on its way.
But still the surfers need to get Alex to the parking lot
almost 800 meters away.
They improvise using a surfboard as a stretcher.
The only way is across boulders and steep dunes.
TOMAS (off-screen): We were struggling quite a lot,
you step on everything, you cut yourself,
it was definitely a mission.
ALEX (off-screen): I don’t know how they didn’t drop me,
I really do not know.
(clapping)
I congratulate them, they did a great job.
NARRATOR: As for the motivation behind the attack.
The answer may not be far away.
Authorities are dealing with a dead whale on the beach.
For any great whites in the area,
the smell could be luring them in.
They can detect blood in the water from over five kilometers away.
RYAN: Not only is this carcass the biggest source of energy available,
ever for great white sharks,
the ease in which it’s available is massive,
the shark doesn’t have to spend any energy except maybe
some jaw muscles to acquire that blubber.
Every moment that whale is on the beach it’s leeching oil,
it’s leeching scent into the water,
its attracting sharks to that beach.
If you’re surfing out there and big sharks are around and
they’re looking for this source of smell,
and you’re there in the middle of that,
chances that you get bitten is really high.
So, in Alex’s case that is most probably what happened.
NARRATOR: Whales have been protected in Western Australia
since 1979.
Their population is on the rise.
But that could have an unfortunate consequence...
Increased shark attacks.
RYAN: This whale populations growing and growing and
growing every year.
RYAN (off-screen): That means more are also going to be dying of
natural causes ending up on beaches.
The simple answer is stay out of the water when that carcass
is there, even if it’s on the beach.
NARRATOR: After Alex’s attack,
warning signs went up around the beach.
Just hours later, a great white was seen
near the surf-line.
Authorities ordered everyone out of the water.
But one surfer decided the waves were too good to resist.
MAN: Oh my God! MAN 2: Holy ...
MAN: Holy ... no ...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
MAN: Oh my God!
NARRATOR: Western Australia.
Just hours after a surfer was attacked.
There’s blood in the water again.
MAN: Holy ... no ...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
ANTHONY (off-screen): A Fisheries vessel had approached some surfers in
the water to inform them that there was a another shark
very close by and everyone except one surfer got out,
and that one surfer was pretty adamant that he was fine...
Within minutes he got attacked himself.
MAN: Oh my God! MAN 2: Holy ...
MAN: Holy ... no ...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
MAN: He’s gone? MAN 2: Nah he’s swimming.
MAN: He’s swimming. C’mon mate!
MAN 2: Choppy’s coming back! Choppy’s coming back.
MAN: Holy ...
MAN 2: Get the leg rope off.
NARRATOR: Incredibly, the bitten surfer makes it back
to shore on his own.
MAN: You alright mate? MAN 2: Yeah.
MAN: Thought we were going to have to get you up as soon as possible.
MAN 2: Yeah, I’ll have to go to the docs I think.
MAN: That’s not that bad, it’s gonna hurt but.
MAN 2: ... bad enough. MAN: You‘re pumped right now.
MAN 2: Oh my mate just gave me that board.
Oh I’m so lucky.
MAN: You alright?
ANTHONY: My first thought was who would be possibly
surfing again in that area.
Surfers are a funny bunch, if the surf is good enough and
there’s no one is around I am sure some people would
sort of roll that dice and have another crack at it, but,
I think a lot of lessons were learnt that day.
NARRATOR: 18,000 kilometers away, in the
United States of America,
is the shark bite capitol of the world.
Florida has 33% of all unprovoked attacks.
MAN: Hey! Get out of the water!
NARRATOR: One of the main culprits for the attacks...
The blacktip shark.
Growing up to two and a half meters long,
it hunts just off the Florida coastline.
To study their habits, Professor Stephen Kajiura
catches blacktips with baited drumlines.
STEPHEN: Alright let’s drop another one.
NARRATOR: By tagging blacktips,
he discovered the sharks hug the shoreline.
To hunt for baitfish.
And where it keeps them from danger.
STEPHEN: The blacktips are able to get very shallow,
where the bigger sharks are simply unable to go.
They are also staying out of the way of some of the bigger predators,
you have like big hammerhead sharks.
NARRATOR: From his aerial studies Professor Kajiura has
made a startling discovery.
STEPHEN (off-screen): As you’re flying along,
you can see people in the water happily swimming or whatever,
and there‘s sharks are right there.
The people are totally oblivious,
they don’t even realize they’re literally surrounded
by hundreds of sharks.
NARRATOR: March 22nd, 2019.
Math teacher, Chris Bryan finishes up in the classroom.
His perfect way to unwind, a late afternoon surf.
CHRIS: There’s a few beaches here in Florida where you can
find fossilized sharks teeth.
I’ve got some bull sharks, I’ve got a sand tiger.
They are still like needle sharp,
I mean it’s just like razor blades.
I’m never really thinking about sharks,
it’s never really crossed my mind.
CHRIS (off-screen): It was a Friday afternoon
and caught a handful of waves.
Nothing spectacular.
So I took one more wave in and
when I got to the inside sand bar,
jumped off my board and
as soon as I entered the water...
Wham, on my foot and just sharp pain and it was gone.
I‘m thinking I’ve just been bitten by a shark and
my foots just aching, and I saw blood coming down my leg.
So I started waving and calling for help.
Nobody was responding.
BOUCHRA: I see this guy out in the ocean like waving his hand,
so I say to my family, I said,
"I think that guy is yelling for help."
And at that point we saw the wave hit him and
the blood just flowing through the water,
so we just took off running.
CHRIS: I knew that I was bleeding, I knew that I had been bit pretty good.
And I saw that the top of my foot was just ripped open.
That's when I knew that, it wasn't just a little bite.
NARRATOR: Over the last decade shark attacks on surfers have risen.
Florida, more than any other place is the shark bite capital of the world.
Math teacher, Chris Bryan, out for a brief after school surf,
the latest victim.
CHRIS: It was just wham on my foot,
and just sharp pain.
I’ve just been bitten by a shark.
When I actually got up onto the beach I was so
just physically drained and woozy and nauseous.
BOUCHRA: We had taken a beach towel and wrapped it around
his foot as he would continue to lose blood he was very, very pale.
CHRIS: All of a sudden there was somebody clapping in front of my face.
Come on Chris, stay with us, stay with us.
BOUCHRA: I just said to Chris, "I'll stay with you, I'll stay
with you until they get you into the ambulance."
NARRATOR: Chris’s attacker may have been a blacktip.
Surfing during the shark migration increased his chance
for being bitten.
Turning a quick surf into a complex operation with so
many stitches the surgeon ran out of thread.
For the survivors of shark attacks,
the experience never leaves them.
Marjorie Mariano returns for the first time to
the exact spot where she was bitten by a four meter tiger shark.
MARJORIE: Where that wave is breaking right there
that’s where the shark attacked me.
I love this place and
now it put, like, a scar in my heart.
I am challenged to heal that scar.
I never want to expose this
vulnerable...
...side of me.
(sniffling)
NARRATOR: There’ve been attempts to stop shark attacks.
Including, extreme measures.
RYAN: The idea of culling a shark population and
expecting that stretch of coast to be devoid of sharks is pretty naïve,
all you’re going to have is new ones coming in.
Sharks as those top predators maintain the balance,
if sharks go, the simple conclusion is that the ocean
is going to die, the entire human and earth ecosystem is
going to start breaking down.
NARRATOR: Shark survivor, Alex Travaglini,
made it his mission to help surfers.
Six months after his attack,
a shark warning alarm was installed.
ALEX: I’m not here trying to say we should kill any sharks.
At random times of the day I used to...
Just have flashbacks of the attack,
something would trigger it,
it could be a smell or something that was said, or a noise.
I really wanted to make sure that what happened to me
didn’t happen to anyone else.
NARRATOR: For Denver Struwig,
bitten just days after his wedding,
it’s been a long journey to recovery.
DENVER: This was supposed to be the kick-start,
and now we get halted by this incident.
And so she...
...whoa.
DENVER: It's...
KRISTY: When I saw his nightmares,
I would wake up with him shouting and shaking,
almost as if he was underwater.
And...
...absolute panic.
DENVER: Kristy’s reaction was complete support.
It’s like, we're going to get through this,
and we're going to surf again.
NARRATOR: For Leanne Ericson and her partner Dusty,
returning to the ocean has been difficult.
LEEANNE (off-screen): I don’t feel any animosity towards sharks and
I don’t blame sharks.
I took a risk going in the water which we all do
every time we get in.
I just try to talk myself to getting back in the water.
(laughs)
Maybe one day.
DUSTY (off-screen): Maybe someday I’ll get Leanne back out there with me,
but we’ll see.
NARRATOR: Fortunately, most surfers and swimmers never
fall prey to shark attacks.
With only four fatalities each year.
Humans, on the other hand, are responsible for the deaths of
over 100 million sharks.
Today, with stories about attacks ever increasing.
Are we really in danger?
RYAN: We are seeing more attacks over the years.
Not because the sharks are getting more aggressive,
because the human population is going up.
STEPHEN: With more people in the water their chance of
being bitten just keeps rising.
STEPHEN (off-screen): You are much more likely to kill yourself taking a selfie
than you are being killed by a shark.
Sharks are not actually targeting the humans,
they are not out to bite them.
We are not part of their menu.
These sharks are feeding on fish,
we do not taste the same.
It’s possible to be in the water with the sharks and
be totally unbothered by them.