Surfers are always on the hunt for the perfect wave.
A trip to the beach is usually the highlight of their week.
But a Florida surfer went to hell and back to survive this scary fight for his life.
Florida surfer survives his second shark attack at a beach
Shark attacks are extremely rare.
The odds of being attacked by a shark are about one in 11.5 million according to the International Shark Attack File.
One man survived a shark attack for the second time at a Florida beach.
Cole Taschman, a 28-year-old, was surfing at Bathtub Beach in Stuart, Florida when lightning struck twice for him.
He turned around and saw a shark lock onto his legs.
“I looked behind me and he was he kind of was just like, on the back of me,” Taschman said. “I just looked, and I saw last-second him kind of going under and then he just kind of moved towards the side. I could kind of see his silhouette.”
Taschman estimated that the shark was about seven to eight feet long.
He thought that it was either a tiger or a bull shark, two of the most aggressive species toward man.
The surfer managed to free his legs from the shark and make his way back to the shore.
His friends used the surfboard leashes to fashion tourniquets for his legs.
Taschman figured it would be faster to go straight to the hospital than wait for emergency services to arrive at the beach.
A race to the hospital for treatment
The surfer lost consciousness on his way to the hospital from blood loss.
“I actually blacked out,” Taschman recalled. “I almost passed out from shock or losing enough blood. So Ana (Taschman’s girlfriend) is in the back slapping me, and Zach is driving like a madman trying to get me to the hospital. He’s dumping water on my head. They kept me awake, so thank god.”
The attack required 93 stitches and surgery to repair three tendons.
“The injury from the shark was very impressive, like the lacerations from the shark teeth are almost as clean from the knives, the surgical steel, we use to do our surgeries,” one of his surgeons told NBC.
He was grateful that his friends were there with him at the beach.
“It’s freaky,” Taschman stated. “That’s just the heaviest thing ever. You know, you think a lot about family and think a lot about, life. You know, it changes you. So definitely don’t surf alone.”
The surfer was first attacked by a shark at the same beach in 2013.
But this attack was much worse than the first one.
“There’s no comparison,” Taschman explained. “It’s like comparing an Olympic athlete to a high school athlete like, you know, the amount of trauma. It’s so hectic how much worse this one was.”
He called this shark a “beast.”
“The first one was a tiny reef pup,” Taschman said.
Cole Taschman is in rare company to have survived two shark attacks and lived to tell the tale.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
