A British doctor living in Australia survived a frighteningly close encounter with a large shark while surfing off the coast of Australia Monday, according to news reports.
Charlie Fry, 25, said he owes his survival to a video of Australian surfer Mick Fanning, who described escaping the jaws of a shark by punching it in the nose.
"When it happened, I was like: 'Just do what Mick did. Just punch it in the nose,'" Fry told Australia's Nine Network television. And that's what he did.
"The shark came from my right-hand side, it just went for my shoulder, got a big thud, and then I turned to the right and I saw a shark's head come out of the water with its teeth and I just punched it in the face," Fry told Nine Network.
“It was just pure adrenaline, I genuinely thought I was going to die, like 'you’re about to be eaten alive by a shark', so everything slowed down, like 'get on your board and surf,'” he said.
And that’s what he did. He quickly got back on his surfboard and caught the next wave for shore.
He estimated the shark was between five and six feet long.
"I got the impression it was big, it felt big to me, the head was really big ... it was about to eat me!" Fry said, according to Nine Network.
The emergency room doctor is a novice surfer, has only been living in Australia in Central Coast, just north of Sydney, for about two months, after moving there for a new job.
Although Fry went to the hospital for treatment, amazingly he escaped the potentially fatal attack with just a few minor shoulder injuries.
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