Add The New York Post on Google A Florida fisherman was bitten by a seven-foot shark and nearly bled to death — but was saved by two nurses who miraculously happened to be nearby.
David Daniel, 43, was mauled by the beast as he fished near a sandbar on Boca Grande Key Beach in Key West, nearly severing an artery in the attack.
“It looked like a six- or seven-foot nurse shark. It was cruising parallel on the beach line, and I started to move a little bit, and it turned and b-lined directly at me,” Daniel, of Silver Springs, FL, told WSVN.
“[It] snapped at the top of my foot and let go, realizing I wasn’t a fish or crab or whatever they wanted to eat.”
He also recalled the moment he thought he was going to die in the attack, in an interview from his hospital bed.
“I looked down in the water, and there was so much blood in the water. I said, ‘There’s no way you’re getting off this beach,'” he told TODAY from his hospital bed in Miami, where he was airlifted after the attack on Aug. 23.
Luckily, two nearby boaters, who happened to be nurses, immediately rushed to help Daniel, taking him to shore and stemming the bleeding while they waited for the US Coast Guard to arrive.
“If it weren’t for them, I would 100% be dead on the beach. Grace to God that they were all medically trained people and nurses and EMTs,” he said.
Chris Green, one of Daniel’s Good Samaritans, came forward after the attack.
“We did our job as nurses to help control the bleeding and get the limb elevated, and we hollered for somebody to call the Coast Guard,” Green told WSVN.
Daniel was successfully discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, and says he is in much better spirits.
“I’m pretty stable. I can’t really move around at all. My foot is in a boot, and it’s all wrapped up from the surgeries,” he said.
“Just my blood pressure’s acting a little funny because, you know, I just got attacked by a shark. So I’m kind of just trying to stay positive and think of all the good people that are helping me out and trying to stay in a good mindset and happy,” he added.
Daniel said his recovery is expected to take months, requiring lengthy time off work and extended physical therapy.
He doesn’t have medical insurance, and his friends created a GoFundMe for him to cover his expenses, which had raised more than half of its $16,000 target as of Monday.
