Surfer picks up beached shark and carries creature back to the water in Victoria
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Daring moment: Surfer ‘hero’ picks up a beached shark and carries the frantically flapping fish back into the water
- Man risked his life picking up a stranded shark and bringing it back to the water
- The surfer thought the shark might be disoriented or sick and wanted to help
- The deadly creature thrashed violently in her arms as she picked it up.
A surfer is hailed a hero for risking his life to pick up a beached shark and bring it back to the water, in a bizarre incident filmed by a fellow beachgoer.
Initially, Paul Myles tried to push the predator with his surfboard back into deeper water safely at a beach at Eastern View on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
But knowing that time was running out for the animal, Mr. Myles made the very brave decision to lead the shark into the waves, the deadly creature writhing violently in his arms.
Surfer Paul Myles (pictured) made the very brave decision to pick up a stranded shark and bring the creature back to the waves.
“I thought I’d give it a shot, I wasn’t sure if he was disoriented or sick or whatever,” Myles told the outlet. abc on Saturday.
“I thought I’d take it out a little further out in the water, see if it would swim out to sea, but it didn’t look too good.”
Myles said he thought it was a blue shark, weighing around 20kg.
In his more than four decades of surfing at Eastern View, he has rarely seen sharks and never one this close to the beach.
“I once saw one of the rocks about 20 years ago, but that’s enough, I think,” he said.
The larrikin joked that he’s really just a “big softie” and that he hopes his good deed has earned him some “brownie points” the next time a shark swims by while he’s catching a wave.
Paul Myles is depicted picking up the beached shark, in a move he hopes will earn him ‘brownie points’ in any future shark encounters.
The close encounter that could have gone terribly wrong has done nothing to discourage him from returning to the ocean, with Mr. Myles heading out to surf the new year on Sunday.
His actions have been widely praised on social media.
‘What a hero! Thank you for showing kindness,” wrote one, while another called him “a legend.”
Echoing his own hopes for good karma from the experience, one person wrote that he would score “brownie points with Mother Ocean, safe waves mate.”
Another supporter simply said ‘Wow, what a great human being.’