New Zealander James Grant survived a shark attack, sewed up his wounds and went for a beer with his mates
A junior doctor has told how he fought off a sevengill shark that had latched onto his leg, stitched himself up and went to the pub for a beer with his friends.
James Grant, 24, was spear fishing near the Colec Bay on the coast of New Zealand’s south island when he felt a tugging on his leg.
He told Radio New Zealand: “I thought it was one of the boys!”
“I’d just shot this fish, so I had my spear dagger out just trying to dispatch the flapping fish… and that’s when all this started happening.
“To be honest it was a bit of an odd reaction. It wasn’t really fear or anything, it was just like: ‘F**k it, I’ve got to try and get this thing off my leg’, so I gave it a good few jabs to try get it off,” he said.
Grant had borrowed a thick wetsuit from a friend which protected his leg from the sharks jaws, which he estimated were around 20cm (8in) across.
“It wasn’t until I’d taken the wetsuit off from the shore that I saw all the lacerations.”
Grant retrieved a first aid kit he kept in his vehicle for pig hunting and attempted to stem the bleeding by tacking the flesh together with a couple of stitches.
“I think it must have been adrenaline at the time because it wasn’t too bad putting them in – but I wouldn’t usually do that,” he said.
“We cleaned up the fish in the parlour that we’ve got out there and then headed to the Colac Bay pub and had a bit of a beer.”
The barman working at the Colac Bay Tavern, Warren Bevin, then gave him a cold beer and a rag to soak up the blood.
“It was sort of unheard of to walk in the bar and ask for something to mop the blood up with [and] then have a beer,” he told Radio New Zealand.
“[There were] sort of small, stab, puncture wounds on both sides down the lower calf muscle. It wasn’t a huge gash, but it was big enough to be concerned about.
“He was pretty jovial about the whole thing. Whether it was shock or a bit of adrenaline, he was fine.”
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