Footage: Great White Shark attack at Manhattan Beach

On Saturday morning, long-distance swimmer Steven Robles was bitten by a Great White Shark just off Manhattan Beach, California. A fisherman had been trying to reel the shark in from the pier for 40 minutes when Robles, who was training with 14 other swimmers, swam into the shark’s vicinity. Agitated by the struggle and the hook in its mouth, the shark bit into Robles’ chest, before biting into the hand he used to try and fight it off. This is classed as a provoked attack, due to the fact the shark was angry at being fished and was trying to escape. After his attempts to fight it off, the shark released Robles and swam away. There’s conflicting reports about the shark’s size, measuring from seven to 10 feet. 

Robles survived with wounds to his chest and arm. The beach was closed for several hours afterwards to coax the shark back out to sea.

Regulations for the area state that the line must be cut as soon as a shark is identified. This in mind, you want to assume the best of the fishermen in this video. You wanna hope they don’t realise it’s a Great White Shark that they’re dragging through a pack of swimmers, and that when Robles starts to scream, that they really don’t actually believe he’s been bitten. Because if they realised it was a white, and were laughing about dragging it through some swimmers, then this is really infuriating.

Once they grasp the gravity of the situation, they alert the swimmers closest to them, telling them something that no person ever wants to hear whilst swimming a long way off shore:

“How big is it?”

“Enough to eat your leg! Fucken move it! It already bit someone!”