Spearfisher attacked by bull shark says it was a ‘blessing’ that he kept his hand

Shark encounters are a part of spearfishing in the Gulf of Mexico, and Wesley Fayard, an experienced scuba diver from Mississippi, has had plenty of them. But on June 29, while diving about 50 miles offshore, he came as close to a shark as he’d ever been. After speargunning two mangrove snapper in deep water, Fayard was surprised by a 6-foot bull shark that tried to snatch the fish from his line. The attack could have been much worse, and he says he was lucky to be able to swim away with both hands.

“I had many encounters with sharks and moments where I was a little shocked, so to speak,” says Fayard Outdoor living“Usually you see the shark pretty early before it comes to bump into you or really check on you. But that just wasn’t the case this time.”

Fayard was out that day with some other members of the DeepWater Mafia, a local dive club that organizes group trips to the Gulf. He says he joined a trip at short notice and jumped aboard a club member’s 31-foot Contender along with five other divers, including a doctor with emergency room experience. Fayard didn’t know this when they left the marina – the two had never met before – but later that afternoon, having a doctor on board would become very important.

The group left Pascagoula around 7 a.m. and sailed about 60 miles south. They made a few dives and harpooned around some pyramids, large artificial reefs designed to attract fish.

“Some of the guys got some nice mangrove snapper and we definitely had a good box of fish,” Fayard says of her first two dives. “On the second dive I saw a shark, but it was just like a normal day. You see the shark coming, it’s kind of swimming around, but I didn’t pay any attention to it and it didn’t pay any attention to me.”

From there, the group worked their way inland. They stopped at a few more pyramids to do some spearfishing, then headed for a natural reef about 50 miles offshore that some of the guys knew well. Two of them dove down and found some fish, but didn’t stay there long.

“They caught some nice snapper and said the sharks were aggressive. There were five or six bull sharks there and they were circling (the guys) pretty closely,” says Fayard, who was next to dive. “It wasn’t really a big deal for me, I’ve been in that situation before, but we went about 300 meters further to another reef in the same area.”

Looking back on the incident, Fayard believes one of the aggressive bull sharks must have followed the dive boat to the second reef. Like other predators, sharks can learn to associate humans with a free meal, and Fayard says he has seen the same shark follow a boat from spot to spot on previous dives. But at the time, it was focused on finding its own fish. It dived through a murky top layer to a maximum depth of 34 metres, where it was relatively dark on the bottom.

Continue reading: The Ultimate Guide to Spearfishing

Fayard immediately harpooned a large 15-pound red snapper. It wasn’t a perfect shot, so he had to wrestle with the fish for a while before he could thread it onto the line. After reloading, he harpooned and wrestled with another nice snapper, then hooked it onto the line attached to his hip. But when he checked his surroundings again, he could no longer see the reef. He held the harpoon in his left hand and looked around for which direction to go.

“I was about 20 feet off the ground and I remember looking to my right and there he was. He was over my right shoulder and coming from behind,” Fayard says of the 6-foot bull shark. “He was only about four or five feet away and I got a fright. So I turned around really quickly, backed away and turned my body toward him.”

Fayard believes the sudden movement caused the bull to pounce on the two snappers before they could escape. The fish were still hanging from his waist and floating at his side when the shark attacked.

“He closed those four feet in a split second,” says Fayard, “and all I could see were bubbles. It was easy, bam, my hand is in his mouth and I’m screaming and trying to break free.”

After thrashing around on his right hand for a few seconds, the shark let go and disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Fayard swam to the surface, both snappers still on his hip, pausing for only a minute to release pressure as he surfaced. Because he was wearing gloves, he couldn’t see how bad the wound was, but he knew he had to get out of the water quickly.

Continue reading: Watch: Shark pulls fisherman overboard in Florida’s Everglades

When he surfaced, his dive buddies rushed over and pulled him into the boat. The doctor on board immediately went to emergency, removed Fayard’s glove and wrapped a towel tightly around his hand to stop the bleeding. The boat’s captain contacted emergency services via his inReach and when they were 10 miles out, a Wildlife and Fisheries boat showed up to re-bandage Fayard’s hand and escort her to the marina. From there, Fayard was taken to one hospital, then another, where he underwent surgery to repair the severed tendons in his right hand and wrist.

Doctors told Fayard he might lose some strength in some fingers, but they expect his hand to make a full recovery. He feels incredibly lucky. He says the glove made a huge difference that day and was one of several factors that made the attack less bloody than it could have been.

“I had a very good cut and puncture resistant glove. And that saved my hand, no doubt. I would have lost my pinky and ring finger, that’s for sure,” says Fayard, who plans to continue spearfishing in the Gulf, albeit with extra safety precautions and a newfound respect for bull sharks. “I know I could have done things differently. But I also know it could have been a lot worse.”

“I call it a blessing,” he continues. “I am a Christian and I believe that God has been looking out for me.”