According to witnesses, the victim of a shark attack hit him in the face

A man survived a shark attack by punching the shark in the face before being rescued by other swimmers at a popular California beach, a witness said.

The 46-year-old was with a group in the water at Del Mar City Beach near San Diego when he was bitten in the upper body, left arm and hand about 90 m from the shore.

One of the swimmers, Jenna Veal, was behind the victim during the attack and told Sky’s US partner broadcaster NBC News that she heard him screaming for help.

“He punched him in the face. He punched him in the nose,” she said on NBC’s TODAY show.

“I know he had a cut on his hand from a shark tooth.”

The group brought the man back to shore, where a passing emergency doctor stopped to help.

Ms Veal said there had been a “massive, all-out rescue effort” – adding that the victim had been conscious the whole time and was believed to be OK.

Another eyewitness told the show: “When we saw the guy swimming back, it was really shocking.”

Lifeguards were setting up their positions on the beach for the day when they were alerted.

The victim – a deep-sea swimmer who regularly trains on the beach – suffered significant but non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to a hospital for treatment, city officials said.

Almost the entire stretch of beach was closed after the attack on Sunday morning.

One of the swimmers was equipped with a tourniquet, but it was unclear whether he used it, Jon Edelbrock, the city’s lifeguard chief, said on the show.

A drone and a boat were then used to search for the shark, but without success.

“The visibility in the water was really bad,” said Mr Edelbrock.

“You just can’t see anything moving through the water column. The exact moment of the incident was actually the only interaction with the shark or the only sighting of it.”

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Sharks Sharks, including great white sharks, come close to swimmers, surfers and paddlers almost daily in the waters off Del Mar and Torrey Pines Beach in San Diego, experts say. According to the International Shark Attack File database, only 20 unprovoked attacks have been recorded in the region since 1926.

The waters around San Diego are considered gathering places where sharks often feed. Shark attacks are less likely in such areas because the animals are used to being in the water with humans and therefore do not confuse them with more typical prey such as sea lions.

“There are a lot of sharks there and a lot of people around us every day, so we’re not really sure why this particular event occurred,” Chris Lowe, professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at California State University, told Reuters.

His team has tagged 225 juvenile great white sharks and is monitoring their movements.

“It could have been a new shark in the area that was not used to humans and made a mistake,” he said.