When Monterey, California surfer Eric Tarantino was attacked by a great white this past fall the 27-year-old had just paddled out into the surf in the pre-dawn light. When the shark struck, it knocked Tarantino cold, and he awoke upside down and in the jaws of the shark. What happened next is somewhat of a blur. Understandably, considering doctors later said that the deadliest of Tarantino’s wounds came just two millimeters from slicing open the carotid artery in his neck. Tarantino vaguely remembers kicking back at the shark, then mounting his board and managing to paddle back in to the point where he could catch a wave. It was only then that he realized his arm was bleeding and at that moment the fear came: “Seeing all the blood in the water and realizing that if the shark decided to come back and get me, there would be nothing I could do about it. That’s when it became really scary.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2011 at 7:00 am and is filed under Surf. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.