A 25-year-old surfer escaped potential death at sea by using a move he learned on YouTube to stop a shark attack.
Charlie Fry is a 25-year-old doctor from Great Britain who was in Australia for work. He was out surfing on Nov. 13 when a shark attacked him. He was able to escape major harm by using a tactic pro surfer Mick Fanning shows in a YouTube video. Fry was at Avoca Beach in New South Wales at the time,
The Washington Post reported.
“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’,” Fry told
9 News.
In 2015 Australian pro surfer Mick Fanning was attacked by a shark in the middle of a surfing competition on the South African coast. A YouTube video of the attack and an interview with Fanning afterward went viral. That is what Fry credits for saving his life.
“Me and my friends have just started surfing. We saw the YouTube clip of Mick Fanning saying that he punched it in the nose. So when it happened I was like ‘Just do what Mick did. Just punch it in the nose,’” Fry said to “
The Today Show.”
Fry came away with bite marks on his shoulder and arm. The injuries weren’t serious.
In the Mick Fanning video, the pro surfer is about to start his surfing run when a shark sneaks up on him from behind. He isn’t visible for a few moments after getting pulled off his board. Multiple boats race forward to rescue him, and they pull him out. He came away from the incident relatively untouched, but the cord that attaches his surfboard to his ankle was shredded by the shark.
The Fanning video, posted by the
World Surf League, has almost 25 million views on YouTube.
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