Carson Jewell was body surfing at Masonboro Island in North Carolina on Saturday when he was bitten by a shark on his right hand. The surfer was out with two friends and unfortunately the trio only had two surf boards. Carson decided to body surf while his mate was catching some waves on his board. As he was riding the wave a shark mistook his hand for a snack and bite down.
He told Star News Online “Immediately I knew what had happened,” he said. “By the time I stood up out of the water, I was bleeding profusely.” His friends used a surfboard leash to stop the bleeding. “The two sides of my hands are completely thrashed,” he said.
The event took place on an island and the group took a boat back to Jewwll and headed over to New Hanover Regional Medical Center. Luckily the wound only required stitches even though it punctured his artery. He said “The area around my wrist was really serious. It punctured – but didn’t sever – the artery. If you hold the hand up now, you can see perfectly the shape of the shark’s mouth.”
He said the shark was probably 4 or 5 feet long even though he didn’t really pay that much attention to it. “It doesn’t hurt now. I haven’t been taking my pain medication,” he said. “I expect to be back at work on Thursday … but I won’t be using a knife for a couple of weeks.” If you are ever in Wilmington NC stop by the Rx Restaurant and check up on him.
He knows sharks are a part of the ocean life saying “I’ve been doing this for almost 25 years, and we’ve seen sharks a million times. It doesn’t scare me, I guess, anymore,” he said. “But I might take it more seriously next time.”
Sharks are vital and we enter their homes whenever we get in the water. Should you be scared? No, just cautious. Never go out while bleeding, don’t wear shinny jewelry and don’t swim in mucky waters. Sharks use their vision to find prey and sometimes they cant tell the difference between a hand and a fish, especially in rough waters.
Check out our shark bite interaction map to see how rare of an occurrence it is.
