Australian windsurfer Andy McDonald had a lucky escape this week after coming face-to-face with a shark off the country’s west coast.
A camera for the surf media website swellnet.com captured the moment that the shark seemingly came out of nowhere and knocked the 61-year-old McDonald off his board.
“Everything was really nice, and then just out of the blue, bang, something so hard and strong hit me like a freight train,” McDonald told the Australian network ABC. “It just pushed me up into the air and I fell into the, I fell into the water. I knew it was a shark.”
The swellnet video shows McDonald and a couple other windsurfers cruising through waters off the coast near the town of Margaret River when both he and his sail suddenly plunge into the water and out of view.
“The shark must’ve dived because everything went underwater, myself and all my gear and at that point I was like punching it and wrestling with it, pretty much just trying to get away from it, kicking it and just trying to hope that my, none of my limbs were near its mouth, which I had no idea where it was,” he told ABC.
“I thought I was gone for. I just thought, ‘This is it, this is the moment that is the end of my life.'”
Australian Broadcasting Corporation/Reuters
About 10 seconds after he was pulled under, with some splashing at the spot, McDonald can be seen resurfacing in the swellnet video. As he spoke with ABC, he sat behind his surfboard, which had a roughly one-foot-wide distinctive bite-shaped gap in its side.
Asked if his tussle with the shark had put him off surfing for a while, McDonald said he’d already got a replacement, and would likely hit the water again in a matter of hours.
“I ordered a new board this afternoon,” he said. “I’ll go back in the water. I’ll go back out tomorrow.”