A SUFER recalled the horrific moment he drove out a shark after being bitten on a shore that had already seen five attacks in two weeks.
Shawn Donnelly, 41, was lying on his surfboard in the waters of a beachfront park in Long Island, New York, Wednesday morning when the marine predator sank its teeth into its left calf.
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“The shark ambushed me,” he told The New York Post. “I’ve never been so scared in all my life…I screamed and waved.”
The bite hurled Donnelly into the seven-deep water, as he was about 40 feet off the shore of Smith Point County Park in Shirley.
He said he could see the spotted dorsal fin of the possible sand tiger shark.
“It came out of the sandbar like a torpedo,” he said. “There was no fish jumping out of the water, no water moving, just silent then ‘pop’. The next thing I knew, the shark knocked me off my shelf.’
Donnelly hit the animal and managed to get back on its shelf as the five-foot-tall man eater slumbered beneath him.
“I was shocked,” he said. “I just hit the shark once. I hit it, immediately turned around and paddled to the beach.
“When I got back on my board, it was below me, so close,” he said.
Fortunately, a wave helped him flee back to the shoreline.
“I…padded like hell. After a few strokes, a wave broke behind me and pushed me toward shore,” Donnelly said.
Once out of the water, Donnelly couldn’t believe what was happening to him. It was then that he saw blood drip from a 2-inch cut on his leg.
“I did a quick check. I thought maybe he didn’t catch me. Then I saw the blood running down my leg and a clear bite mark,” he said.
Donnelly walked to the check-in desk at a nearby campground and told a park ranger what had happened to him.
His injuries were treated at Long Island Community Hospital.
“It has gone so fast,” he said. “I was scared when it happened. When I got back to the beach I had so much adrenaline that it didn’t even seem like it was real.”
Donnelly is one of five other people who have been attacked by sharks on Long Island in recent weeks.
A 49-year-old Arizona man was on Fire Island’s Seaview Beach in medium-deep water Wednesday when a shark bit him in the buttocks and left wrist, Suffolk County Police said.
On July 3, Zach Gallo, a lifeguard who lives in the area, was bitten on the chest and hand by a shark near Smith Point County Park.
Days later, another lifeguard was kicked off Ocean Beach on Fire Island.
A 37-year-old swimmer was bitten near Jones Beach on June 30.
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