A teenager was bitten on the leg by a shark while he was trying to recover a lost surfboard off Ormond Beach, Florida.
Jordan Hooper, 17, was surfing with friends Nov. 1 using a short surfboard a friend had loaned him. Unfortunately, the board did not come equipped with a leash.
He had been in the water for about 10 minutes around 100 feet from shore when the board washed out from under him. When he surfaced, he realized the board was drifting 30 feet away while he floated in deep water.
“I started swimming toward the board and that’s when I kicked something in the water,” he told Tracking Sharks.
Hooper had inadvertently just kicked a shark.
“As soon as I kicked it, boom! It all happened so fast! It completely grabbed onto my leg,” he said. The estimated 6- to 7-foot shark bit once, and then swam away.
Hooper knew it was a shark, but at first didn’t want to admit it. He said he was afraid to turn and look at his leg.
“That’s when things just started going through my head. I turned and saw all the blood in the water and confirmed what happened. I knew I needed to swim to my board.”
One he made it to the board, he began paddling, but the current was too strong and he wasn’t making any progress.
Blood loss from the bite injury, the effort to swim to the surfboard, and then relentless paddling toward shore took a toll. “I became exhausted, and felt like I was going to pass out,” he said.
He tried to signal his friends, but they didn’t understand the gravity of his situation. “That’s when I realized I was wasting my energy, but I need to get on shore before anything could get any worse.”
Hooper took a moment to catch his breath and then began paddling the 100 feet back to shore. Thankfully, a wave picked up his board and gave him a ride back to the beach.
Once he was back on land, he alerted authorities and waited for an ambulance.
However, when the ambulance arrived, it wasn’t for him but for a person who had drowned around the same time Hooper was bitten.
Forty-five minutes later, paramedics arrived to transport Hooper to the hospital. His injury required 22 stitches to close multiple lacerations on his lower leg.
The incident isn’t going to keep him out of the water, he says, but next time he may be a little hesitant.
“I’m sure It’s going to take some time,” he said. “If you look at it, every time you get in the water there is going to be a shark 50 feet from you. They are just as scared of you as you are of them. Obviously, I am going to get back in, it’s just going to be sitting in my head the whole time. I was bitten by a shark and I don’t want to do it again.”
Hooper says he holds no animosity toward the shark. “If I hadn’t kicked it, I don’t think anything would have happened,” he said.
This is the tenth shark bite reported in Volusia County this year.
All locations have been marked on the 2020 Shark Attack Map.
