Mako shark rips fin off diver, who first thought, ‘I don’t have a leg’
Chad Patti, spearfishing with two friends in the Gulf of Mexico, was waiting for the boat to pick him up when a mako shark blindsided him from the rear.
The shark tore the fin off his right foot and swam away, as video footage he captured of the encounter shows. ViralHog posted his video Sunday, though it occurred in January.
“Luckily, he only took my fin and not my life,” Patti wrote on social media soon after the incident. “I’m very fortunate.”
Patti told WKRG soon after the incident that the first scream in the video was “the terror of I don’t know what’s going on exactly.” He added, “The first thing that went through my mind is I don’t have a leg. I felt a lot of pressure on my right leg from where I think her pec fin hit my leg…It was intense.”
Josh Loucks and Nathan Lancaster were on the boat about 30 feet away.
“There was a huge sense of relief once we were all back in the boat with our arms and legs,” Loucks, who had jumped in to assist Patti, told WKRG.
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They were about 70 miles offshore of Pensacola.
Patti told ViralHog, “It hit me from behind at a good angle from my right rear. I would’ve never seen her coming even if I was looking down. When she hit me I did a flip, she knocked the speargun out of my hands, and partially flooded my mask.”
The heart-racing encounter did not deter the divers from going back into the water, however. But they did admit they dive closer together and keep a closer eye on one another.
Photo courtesy of ViralHog.