20 Most Horrific Real-Life Shark Attacks
Don't go in the water. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at the scariest recorded shark attacks.
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00:00I said, Jimmy, at night I didn't see any sharks. He says, Pete, you don't know what fear is.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the scariest recorded shark attacks.
00:10It's a little bit like a nightmare or a fairy tale, but I've told the story many times.
00:17Parker Simpson
00:19Very few people are actually attacked by sharks, and even fewer have video evidence
00:23of their attack. Parker Simpson is one of the few. The 23-year-old was spearfishing
00:27in the Florida Keys when he encountered an 8-foot-long reef shark underneath the water.
00:36Simpson released his fish, hoping to appease the hungry shark, but the animal came at him instead.
00:41It took a bite out of his left leg before it was successfully fought off, and despite the injury,
00:45Simpson was able to swim to a nearby boat. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, having lost
00:52about a liter of blood. The bite had severed his anterior tibial artery and required 56 stitches
00:57to close. Heather Boswell
01:04Here we have another shark attack caught on camera, this one concerning 19-year-old
01:08Heather Boswell. Back in 1994, Boswell was working in Chile as a researcher.
01:17On their day off, she and the crew decided to go swimming, and that's when tragedy struck.
01:21While she was in the water, Boswell was approached by a great white, which proceeded to
01:25rip off the young researcher's leg. Boswell remembers no pain, stating that all she felt
01:35at the time was a pop. This entire ordeal was caught on video by one of her colleagues and
01:39has since surfaced on Shark Week. Luckily, Boswell survived the attack, but the footage
01:44is certainly harrowing and not for the faint of heart. Lucas Ransom
01:50Lucas Ransom was bodyboarding with his friend Matthew Garcia near Santa Barbara, California.
01:54He was just 100 yards from shore and a few feet away from his friend, Matthew Garcia,
02:00when without warning, he was pulled under. As later described by Garcia, the day was perfect,
02:05very placid and calm water. Then seemingly out of nowhere, Ransom was dragged under the water
02:10by a shark. Ransom quickly reemerged, screaming for help, and the water around him instantly
02:15turned a deep red. Garcia managed to pull Ransom back to the safety of the beach,
02:24but it was already too late. Garcia explained that he was just kind of lifeless. And despite
02:29Garcia's attempts at chest compressions, Ransom died on the beach from a horrific leg injury.
02:34We should celebrate his life and celebrate what he meant to everyone around him
02:38and how he made everyone just feel amazing all the time.
02:42Terry Manuel A recorded 13 people were attacked
02:45by sharks in South Australian waters between 1951 and 2000. 26-year-old Terry Manuel was one of them.
02:52It was 1974, and Manuel was diving for sea snails with his friend John Talbot near Streaky Bay.
02:57Manuel saw the shark and shouted a warning to Talbot, who was in a nearby boat. Talbot did
03:02what he could to save Manuel, but the shark was too fast and attacked the diver,
03:05injuring his arm and back and completely biting off his right leg above the thigh.
03:12The injuries were too great to survive, and Manuel quickly bled to death.
03:16David Peltier Sharks don't discriminate
03:18between their victims, and sometimes, tragically, that means that young people die.
03:22In 2001, young David Peltier was surfing off the coast of Virginia with his father and two
03:27brothers. Richard realized his son was now caught up in a cynical tug-of-war with a sea monster.
03:31He was suddenly grabbed by an 8-foot sandbar shark, and his father acted quickly,
03:35punching the shark in the head until it freed his son. The shark had inflicted
03:39horrible injuries, with one witness claiming that there were shark bites all along his leg.
03:43He lost a lot of blood. Lifeguards tended to Peltier on shore, and he was rushed to
03:47three different hospitals as doctors worked feverishly to save his life.
03:51Little David's life was now being weighed down by each passing second.
03:54Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful.
03:57Sam Kellett Young Sam Kellett worked as a schoolteacher
04:00in Australia and enjoyed diving in his free time. On February 8, 2014, Kellett was freediving with
04:09some friends on Goldsmith Beach when he was suddenly accosted by a violent shark.
04:13Witnesses recount hearing a brief scream and seeing a large shark shoot out of the water.
04:18They then explain that the shark thrashed around as it wrestled with something near the surface,
04:22and the water around it quickly turned blood red. It all happened so quickly,
04:26and when it was over, Sam Kellett was gone. His body was never recovered.
04:29But investigators found his speargun with clear incisions that had been made by a great white.
04:34He would hate the fact that people are now saying, go get the shark. And as a mother,
04:40I'd like to give it a smack, but it's not going to bring him back.
04:44The HMS Birkenhead
04:46We're going back to the mid-19th century for the story of HMS Birkenhead.
04:49She had a top speed of 10 knots, able to make the trip from Britain to the Cape in just 37 days.
04:56Working as a troop ship with the U.S. Navy, HMS Birkenhead served in the Eighth Coasal War,
05:01and on February 26, 1852, she was transporting troops and civilians to Algoa Bay in South
05:07Africa. Just before 2 a.m., the ship hit an uncharted rock and split in half,
05:11sending all on board into the ocean. There was a dash in the hull,
05:14seawater rushed in. At least a hundred soldiers were immediately drowned,
05:18trapped sleeping in their bunks. The ship was only two miles from the mainland,
05:22and some managed to grab debris and float their way to shore. Unfortunately, most either drowned
05:26or were taken by sharks. As one survivor recounts, hundreds of them were all around us,
05:31and I saw men taken by them.
05:33Lewis Boren
05:34On Saturday, December 19, 1981, surfer Lewis Boren set out for some waves in Monterey Bay,
05:40California. He never returned to shore. It wasn't long before a chunk of his surfboard
05:44washed ashore in the same vicinity, with massive teeth marks indicating that it had been eaten.
05:49It's missing a huge crescent section from the left side.
05:52Experts theorize from the bite that the shark was up to 23 feet in length,
05:56making it the largest white shark ever recorded. It was widely assumed that Boren was the victim
06:01of a shark, and this was confirmed when his body washed ashore about half a mile north
06:05of the attack site. It had suffered great trauma, consistent with a shark attack,
06:09and it's likely that Boren died instantly from the bite.
06:12The shark responsible was never captured or identified.
06:16Albert Kogler Jr.
06:18College lovers Albert Kogler Jr. and Shirley O'Neill decided to go for a swim in San Francisco's
06:23Baker Beach on the afternoon of May 7, 1959. Two were about 50 yards out and enjoying the scenery,
06:32the Golden Gate Bridge sitting nearby, when Kogler was suddenly pounced by a great white.
06:37The water instantly turned red, and Kogler told O'Neill to swim away for her own safety.
06:41Despite the warning, O'Neill braved the shark and grabbed her boyfriend around the back before
06:45dragging him to shore. Unfortunately, the injuries were too significant and Kogler would
06:49pass away. As for O'Neill, she was later presented the Young American Medal for Bravery by President
06:54John F. Kennedy.
06:55Bethany Hamilton
06:57If you've seen the movie Soul Surfer, then you should be familiar with the harrowing but
07:00empowering story of Bethany Hamilton. Back in 2003, Hamilton was surfing with her best friend
07:10Alana Blanchard off the coast of Kauai. She was lying on her surfboard talking to Blanchard with
07:15her arms dangling in the water when a tiger shark bit off her left arm. She was rushed to a nearby
07:28hospital and in one of those divine twists of fate, took her own father's spot in the operating
07:33room, as he was scheduled to have knee surgery that very same day. Despite losing 60% of her
07:38blood, Hamilton made a swift recovery and returned to surfing just one month later.
07:45Pacific Coast of USA
07:51There must have been something in the Pacific water in 1984,
07:54because four shark attacks occurred near Santa Cruz, California that year.
08:06Of these four unlucky victims, 28-year-old Omar Conger received the most media attention,
08:11as tragically, he did not survive. Conger was able to escape from the shark and was
08:14dragged ashore by his friends, but the damage had already been done. Despite their efforts,
08:18he bled out and died on the beach. The San Mateo County Coroner would later confirm that the cause
08:23of death was exsanguination as the result of multiple shark bites. Luckily, the severity
08:28of the other three attacks proved relatively minor by comparison. Nonetheless, that particular year
08:33has since gone down as a notoriously dangerous one for swimmers in the Santa Cruz area.
08:38Singapore As the passengers aboard the French
08:41steamer La Seine found out the hard way back in 1909, it's not the water itself that you have to
08:46fear when a ship goes down, but what swims beneath its surface. Suddenly, the calm of the night on
08:51the ship was broken by a loud blast of the ship's whistle, and the chief officer jumped up and rushed
08:57to the deck to find out what had happened. Traveling from Java to Singapore, La Seine
09:02met catastrophe in the Rio Strait when it crashed into a British steamer while still 28 miles from
09:08shore. The passengers hardly had time to react as the ship went down in less than five minutes,
09:13sending all on board into the shark-infested waters. The first of the passengers had
09:17scarcely touched the water before a shoal of sharks was circling the scene and dragging
09:22down scores of men and women who never came up again. Of the 154 individuals on La Seine,
09:28papers at the time estimated that 93 had drowned or been eaten alive.
09:33Barry Wilson The first recorded shark attack
09:36victim in California, Barry Wilson was just a teenager when his life was tragically cut
09:40short by a shark near Lover's Point in Pacific Grove. Wilson was swimming with his friend about
09:4740 feet from shore when he was attacked in December 1952. The brutal attack left Wilson
09:52badly injured, and the rough water only increased the difficulty of his rescue.
09:56During the 20-plus minute rescue effort by swimmers, the shark reportedly continued to circle them,
10:01though didn't attack anyone other than Wilson. The young man was eventually pulled back to land,
10:05but he'd already died from his injuries.
10:08Randall Fry We remain in California for another
10:11brutal and sadly fatal attack. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and the sea was calm and
10:17breathing with chaos. The shark was swimming in the water, and the waves were so strong that
10:23and the sea was calm and breathing with cadence.
10:26Randall Fry, an avid lover of all ocean activities, and his friend Cliff Zimmerman
10:30were diving for abalone off the Mendocino Coast back in 2004. Zimmerman reported hearing a loud
10:36whooshing sound before seeing the fin of the shark while the water turned red around him.
10:40Zimmerman was able to safely return to his boat, but Fry was not so lucky.
10:43Cliff remembered that during one of their usual bunters,
10:47Randy had mentioned that a shark might get him in the future.
10:50The next day, a search and rescue team found his head severed from his body.
10:54Robert Pamperin Another outing in
10:56the waters of California, another case of diving for sea snails, and another shark attack.
11:01Robert Pamperin When he got over, he saw his buddy
11:03in the shark's mouth. The shark seemed to have him up to his waist.
11:07Randall Fry Who would have thought abalone
11:09diving would be so dangerous? Pamperin and his friend Gerald Lehrer were diving off the coast
11:14of San Diego back in 1959, when Pamperin let out a loud scream before disappearing beneath the water.
11:20Robert Pamperin is still trying to fight the shark off. He's kicking at it,
11:23and the shark keeps biting at him. Lehrer dove after him and reported
11:26seeing a shark that was longer than 22 feet with Pamperin stuck squarely in his mouth.
11:31Lehrer swam to shore to alert the lifeguards, but they were unable to find any trace of Pamperin,
11:35who was likely completely devoured by the shark.
11:38Ian Redman What started out as a romantic vacation
11:41quickly turned into tragedy. It was supposed to be the dream holiday to launch their life together.
11:47On his honeymoon off Anselatio Beach in Seychelles, Redman was out snorkeling when he
11:52was set upon by a shark. A vacationer in a small boat was able to pull Redman to shore,
11:56but the shark had already taken his arm and leg. Redman bled to death on the beach while his wife
12:05of just 10 days watched. There had been a shark attack in the same exact location two weeks
12:10earlier, but the Seychelles tourism chief had elected not to close the beaches or even warn
12:14the public in order to keep attracting tourists. Rodney Fox
12:18You'd think that a punctured diaphragm, a ripped lung, and pierced scapula would be enough to kill
12:22a man. But not Rodney Fox. In 1963, Fox was defending his spearfishing title when a great
12:32white shark grabbed him by his torso. Fox put up a good fight, including gouging the shark's eyes,
12:37and was eventually able to escape. He required multiple hours of extensive
12:44surgery and over 460 stitches, but lived to tell the tale. He has since become an expert
12:49on great white sharks and even helped design the first-ever underwater shark observation cage.
12:54Jersey Shore Before the fake tans,
12:56hairspray, and fist pumps, the Jersey Shore was perhaps most famous for one of the worst series
13:00of shark attacks in history back in the early 20th century. Between July 1 and July 12,
13:14four people were killed by shark attacks, with a fifth person managing to escape but
13:18suffering severe injuries. Panic ensued, capturing the attention of the nation,
13:26as locals began an effort to eliminate them from the region, referring to them as man-eaters.
13:31It's these attacks that unfortunately gave sharks their rep as ruthless killers,
13:34a reputation they still have today despite scientific discoveries that have proven otherwise.
13:44Shirley Ann Durden Australia has a somewhat unfair
13:47reputation when it comes to shark attacks. Sure, they happen from time to time, but not
14:03quite to the extent many seem to believe. And again, when you hear about attacks like this
14:07in the land down under, it's hard not to let your imagination run wild.
14:13Durden, a mother of four, was snorkeling in just seven feet of water when she was
14:20attacked by a great white shark in 1985. Her husband and children were within view
14:24but could only watch helplessly as Durden was ripped in two. The shark, which some estimated
14:36to be between 14 and 19 feet in length, reportedly claimed all her bodily remains.
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14:58USS Indianapolis The United States Navy had never suffered a
15:02single loss of life at sea as great as the sinking of the USS Indianapolis,
15:07and sharks played a large role in this.
15:11The ship was delivering parts for the first atomic bomb used in combat,
15:20which would later be dropped on Japan. On its return, however, it was hit by Japanese torpedoes
15:25and sank in 12 minutes. About 900 men were sent into the shark-infested waters of the Pacific
15:37Ocean, while the remaining 300 or so went down with the ship. When rescuers finally arrived,
15:42the sharks had eaten much of the crew. Only 317 people survived the disaster, many of whom told
15:55chilling tales of hearing blood-curdling screams in the middle of the night as sharks attacked
15:59their fellow sailors. Do you have any shark stories? Let us know in the comments below!