Shark Attack Victim Speaks Out After Near-Death Experience: “It Felt Like a Punch”

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A Florida man has spoken out after being attacked by two sharks off the coast of the Bahamas, revealing it felt “like a punch”.

Marlin Deere Wakeman, 24, was at the Flying Fish Marina on Long Island in the Bahamas on April 26 when he slipped, fell off a dock and landed in the shark-infested ocean.

“When I landed in the water, I pretty much knew what was going to happen,” Wakeman told reporters in Florida on Thursday, saying that the waters are sometimes so full of sharks that you can almost “walk on their heads.”

The next thing he knew, he was attacked by two sharks.

“He grabbed me, pulled my head under the water and then let me go,” he said of the first shark bite on his knee. “I was very lucky that he didn’t shake his head or hold on for a while.”

Then another shark bit him on the shoulder, he said.

At this point the adrenaline kicked in and Mr. Wakeman retreated back to his boat.

“I had so much adrenaline running through my body that it was like fight or flight,” he said. “I got back in the boat, assessed what had happened and looked at my leg. It hasn’t really bled yet. It was kind of, you know, all garbled.”

He said it felt like “a punch” when the shark bit him on the shoulder, adding: “You really don’t feel the teeth going in.”

After getting to safety, Mr Wakeman’s friend texted his father to tell him what had happened.

“As a parent, I can tell you that time truly stands still,” Rufus Wakeman said Thursday. “Everything in the periphery blurs. It’s the worst kind of text you can get.”

He knew a surgeon at St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida, and flew his son there for treatment.

Mr Wakeman required stitches for his injuries. Doctors said it was amazing that he had managed to keep all of his limbs. His stitches came out on Thursday.

Doctors said one of the bites was dangerously close to an artery, meaning things could have turned out very differently.

“The fact that there are 20 sharks there and you could get out of there and still have one leg is amazing,” Dr. Robert Borrego, the surgeon who treated Marlin, at Thursday’s press conference.

The surgeon estimated, based on the size of the bite marks, that the sharks that had bitten Mr. Wakeman were between seven and eight feet long.

Despite the lucky escape, photographs show Mr Wakeman smiling throughout much of what he described as a “pretty crazy experience”.

Although he is still on crutches for now, he has vowed to return to the Bahamas as soon as possible.

“Maybe I’ll have a few nightmares here and there, but I think I’ll be fine,” he said.