Mel Ismail remembers the shark’s eye.
More specifically, he remembers it appearing to wink at him moments before the animal severed his right leg.
The 56-year-old firefighter was surfing Glenfield Beach near Geraldton, Western Australia, on September 14 when the encounter unfolded. Ismail had been sitting beyond the waves, watching a pod of roughly 20 dolphins when something slammed into him.
“I thought I got hit by a dolphin, initially,” Ismail recalled. “And suddenly, bang — something grabbed me and dragged me down into the water. And I knew it was a shark.”
Underwater, Ismail came face-to-face with the predator.
“I saw its eye … a big black eye,” he said. “But it was winking back at me — I was trying to get my fingers in its eye and just pushing its eye as I was being dragged.”
Then came the bite.
“I personally reckon it gave me the wink, and then shut my leg off,” Ismail said.
His right leg was severed below the knee.
Back at the surface, Ismail saw his surfboard floating away amid “a heap of blood” and immediately feared the shark would return. Somehow, despite massive blood loss and exhaustion, he caught a wave that carried him roughly 20 meters closer to shore.
“I want to see my family,” Ismail remembers telling himself as his strength faded.
That’s when fellow surfer Shannan Dunn spotted him and paddled out.
Related: Watch: 16-Foot Great White Shark Swims Just Offshore as Crowd Watches in Australia
Dunn helped Ismail onto his board and brought him ashore, where bystanders improvised a tourniquet using a surfboard leg rope. Dunn then raced Ismail down the beach in a four-wheel-drive to meet an ambulance.
The sight of paramedics finally convinced Ismail he might survive.
Now, less than a month later, he says he plans to return to the ocean—probably on a bodyboard.
As for the “wink,” it likely wasn’t personal. Many sharks roll their eyes backward to protect them when making contact with prey or threats.
Still, that’s one look Ismail probably won’t ever forget.
Related: 20-Foot Great White Kills Swimmer in Western Australia ‘Like a Scene Off Jaws’ (Video)
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