Two Shark Attacks on Divers

Just a few minutes after entering the water, Gary Johnson, 57, was mauled to death by a great white shark on January 5, off the southern coast of Western Australia, near Esperance. His wife, Karen Milligan, witnessed the awful moment as he was dragged away. Only his tank, BC, and fins have been recovered. We'll never know if a Shark Shield he was wearing really worked as a protection against sharks, because he hadn't switched his on.

The search for his body was called off after three sharks were spotted in a feeding frenzy devouring the remains of a different man, later identified as that of missing soccer player 21-year-old Eric Birighitti. (Australian papers report he was swept out to sea on January 2 after slipping on some rocks.)

Western Australia has suffered 16 fatal shark attacks in the last decade and has culled sharks since 2014, using drum lines (unmanned aquatic traps used to lure and capture large sharks using baited hooks and drum floats). The program has been opposed by conservationists, animal rights groups, and environmentalists.

Johnson's wife said, "We were always aware of the risks, and often told each other that if we were attacked by a shark, that would just be unlucky. We were completely against shark culling, and I still am."

The local news reported Johnson "died doing what he loved," we think a foolish statement since had he foreseen his fate, we have no doubt he would have foregone his love of diving and stayed home that fateful day.

Kristoffer Nymann, 23, from Denmark, was luckier when he went to Baja California Sur in November to photograph marlin and sailfish off the Pacific coast of Mexico. He grabbed the opportunity to buddy up with top underwater photographer, Frenchman, Greg LeCoeur. Thinking he would learn a lot from the experience, he ended up learning more than he reckoned for.

Evidently, the technique for photographing the elusive marlin is to swim on the surface near a bait-ball that they might be attacking, then free dive to get the shot. Any approach directly underwater, as with scuba, scares them away.

"Wham!"

Nymann had just entered the water from the boat and was swimming at the surface toward a bait-ball when he was attacked by a mako shark, which slammed into him and ripped into his upper arm on his right side. He fought to get it off, but it seemed intent on feeding on him. There had been no warning signs. He had not even seen it approach. The attack was literally out-of-the-blue.

In the fight to get it off his arm, Nymann sustained cuts to his hands and his abdomen. He told me later that the shark's teeth were sharp as a razor and cut through his wetsuit and his flesh like a hot knife through butter.

Buddy Greg helped drive the shark off, but Nymann was badly injured. He could feel his right arm dangling uselessly by his side, although he felt no pain. He swam back to the boat and hauled himself out of the water with his remaining functional arm. He was bleeding profusely.

Meanwhile, Greg LeCoeur courageously stayed in the water, continuing to photograph the shark, keeping between it and Nymann, as the younger man retreated to the boat. The shark was old, with only one eye, and displayed massive scars on its upper side, probably caused by a boat propeller. Mako sharks rely on three-dimensional vision for hunting at high speed (they're the fastest of all the sharks) for which they need two eyes. Perhaps, like tigers that become too old to hunt their normal prey and become man-killers, this mako shark was failing to be successful with its normal prey and desperately attacked anything that might have resembled an easy meal.

Nymann was that potential meal. It was a million-to-one chance, and he was simply unlucky, but not as unlucky as Gary Johnson, who didn't survive. The shark got tangled in Kristoffer's wetsuit, and for a few vital seconds, couldn't get free. The bite severed a bicep, fractured Nymann's elbow and injured nerves. Had the mako severed the major artery in his arm, he would certainly have bled to death.

Due to the remoteness of the location and the limited medical facilities in San Carlos, it was 10 hours before he was attended to by a surgeon at the private Fidepaz hospital in La Paz. Nymann was then hospitalized for 15 days, in the first few facing the possibility of an amputation due to the risk of infection. He's now back home in Denmark and bearing scars that forever will make him an expert in shark attacks.

He told Undercurrent, "It hasn't scared me away from diving and wildlife, and I'm excited to be back in the water."

- John Bantin