18-Time East Coast Surf Champ Nibbled By Bull Shark At New Smyrna Beach

Every now and then, a perfect nickname lands on someone. No effort, no thought—just an obvious bestowal. 

Two days back, ‘Gnarly’ Charley Hajek was attacked by a bull shark at New Smyrna Beach—or, as he calls it, Shark Park.

A little background on Gnarly Charley: at 62, he’s an 18-time East Coast surf champ—taut and perhaps a shade too tanned, with a mane of sun-bleached hair that defies his years. A community hero and a die-hard blink-182 fan, he possesses that unnatural, enviable, and erratic energy found in gentlemen with a wild past—a Doug Silva type figure; the kind of guy who keeps the fire burning even when age tries to douse it.

Charley was in the middle of a 148-day surf bender when he stepped off his board, expecting sand but instead finding his foot on the smooth, unsuspecting back of a bull shark.

“I could tell I was on top of something. That split second I go ‘Oh (expletive), I bet I’m on a shark.’ By the time I even thought of that, it bit me so fast. It was so quick and the thrust was so powerful,” Hajek told a local news outlet.

The shark ripped into his lower leg, missing his Achilles by a hair. Charley paddled in, unhurried and unworried, to inspect the damage. 

“I went to stand up. When I put the pressure on my leg: boom. All the blood was just pouring out,” said Charlie, apparently chuckling madly.

It was then that Gnarly Charley remembered his own name. Fashioning a tourniquet out of his leg-rope then, with blood still spurting from his leg, he jumped in his car and drove himself to hospital, where needles stitched up the mess left by the shark. 

“That was Henry. Henry don’t like me because I don’t give him enough attention,” said Charley, his claim of recognising the shark a nod to the relentless presence of aqua-puppies in Floridian lineups.

Last week, Stab rolled into New Smyrna, grinding souls, spirits, and dreams into dust while filming our road trip of doom, Stab Highway. At the time of filming, no arms, legs, or toes found themselves in the jaws of bull sharks, but by all reports, they relentlessly swarmed the helpless road-trip attendees, all while they suffered through a series of ridiculous challenges.

Such is the life of a professional surfer. Thoughts and prayers go out to Gnarly Charley and his leg. Stab Highway East Coast, coming soon.