In Australia, a fisherman found himself stranded in the ocean with sharks circling around him. After the boat he was in sank, he survived by treading water for hours and it was all caught on video by a news crew. He ended up losing his clothing in the ordeal.
One of the crew members can be heard on the tape saying, “We just spotted a massive hammerhead shark just circling around him, probably about 20 meters from him. He’s putting his hands together praying … He’s yelling ‘Help!’” The rescue crew ended up pulling him to safety. There were two other fisherman on the boat before it sank; one of them died, and one of them is still missing.
The man was one of two who were plucked from the ocean after being spotted by a television helicopter in a dramatic rescue involving five aircraft and five boats.
It came after three men failed to return after setting out in a fishing boat from Leeman, 170 miles (270km) north of Perth, on Thursday, prompting a search that covered 125 square miles (320s/km) of ocean.
One of the men later died after being taken ashore, while the other man was being treated for unspecified injuries, West Australian police said. The third man remains missing.
“We haven’t spoken to the survivor yet and until then we don’t know what happened,” a police spokesman said.
A helicopter for Channel Seven television spotted one of the men first, with the reporter on board, Grant Taylor, dramatically relaying the action as it happened.
“When we first spotted him, one of the scariest things was there was a massive hammerhead shark not 20 metres away from him, just slowly circling around him,” he told Australian radio.
“He’s stark naked … just struggling to swim and float on his back and try and keep his head out of the water,” he added of the man.
“He keeps waving at our chopper trying to get us to come down and help him but there’s nothing we can actually do.”
Mr Taylor said an inflatable rescue raft was dropped but it drifted away from the exhausted man.