Angus Kokott emerged victorious from a fight with a shark that nearly bit off his arm.
A man whose left arm was literally “taken apart and put back together” after a horrific shark attack received an unexpected “gift” from the predator – several of the predator's teeth got stuck in his soft tissue. A few months later, he made jewelry out of them as a memento of the incident.
The Daily Star reports on this.
The terrifying event happened to 20-year-old Angus Kokott in May, when he was snorkeling (swimming under the surface of the water with a mask and breathing tube, and usually with fins) off the island of Mangareva in French Polynesia. And although Angus was swimming in shallow water a few meters from the shore, this did not stop a 2.5-meter grey reef shark from appearing out of nowhere and grabbing his hand.
Trying to save his life, Angus did not lose his head, took out a knife, which is usually used to cut diving ropes, and hit the shark in the gills. After this unexpected counterattack, the predator let go of the swimmer and swam away, but his hand was stuck with sharp shark teeth.
The injured Angus was rushed by military aircraft to the nearest hospital, where surgeons spent six long hours putting his arm back together. The shark's sharp teeth had severed two major nerves and several tendons on his arm, and almost completely torn off the skin below his elbow.
The injured young man received a skin and nerve graft. During the operation, doctors also removed several shark teeth from the soft tissue of his arm.
Four months later, Angus is still undergoing rehabilitation to regain mobility in his arm, but says the incident won't stop him from swimming.
“It was a defining experience in my life, and that's why I decided to turn my teeth into earrings. The shark encounter didn't stop me from going to the ocean. I can't wait to get back out there again,” Angus told reporters.
He added that when the shark attacked, there was no time to be afraid or doubtful.
“I didn't have time to panic. In situations like this, when you're pumping so much adrenaline, it's just need to act. At first I felt a lot of pain and thought I was going to lose my arm. And then when the shark let go, I couldn't see anything except this huge pool of blood around me, but I managed to get out on the reef. My arm was literally bleeding,” Angus told the details of the terrible incident.
Angus plans not only to continue scuba diving, but also to make a career in sailing. Having survived the encounter with the shark, he said that he is not afraid to return to the water.
“I think the shark attack was a matter of territory. You can't blame the animal for this,” he emphasized.
Recall that an enraged elephant attacked a car with tourists in Zambia. One US tourist's encounter with an elephant turned fatal, while a second woman was hospitalized with serious injuries.
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