Shark bite, man’s third attack by wild animal
They say bad things come in threes. Dylan Mcwilliams is hoping maybe his misfortune is over. The 20-year-old recently became internationally famous for being bitten by a shark in Hawaii, after he already survived a bear attack and a rattlesnake bite in recent years, The Daily Sentinel wrote.
Less than a year after a bear dragged him out of a sleeping bag by the head and shook him like a rag doll, a tiger shark bit his leg while he was surfing. And a little more than three years ago, he was bitten by a rattlesnake while hiking in Utah.
National Geographic reported the chances of being bitten by all three animals is almost 900 quadrillion to one, making Mcwilliams one of the unluckiest people on the planet. But he doesn’t see it that way. “I’m thinking I should buy a lottery ticket,” he said, sitting at his parents’ Clifton home after returning from Kauai.
For him, it’s all about taking everything in stride and beating the odds. He has always been intrigued by survival, as someone who was trained to live outdoors and grew up watching his idol, Steve Irwin, on TV.
Two weeks ago, Mcwilliams went surfing off the southern side of Kauai, one of the only beaches on the island deemed safe to swim because the rest of the waters were too muddy from recent floods. The night before, he couldn’t sleep and killed time by Googling shark attack statistics. It was his second trip to Hawaii, and the first time he had a chance to surf on this trip.
It was early morning on April 19, and Mcwilliams caught his first wave and went back out again. That’s when he was knocked off his board and felt a sharp pain in his right calf.
Surprised, he looked down and saw his leg was bleeding and a striped, six- to eight-footlong shark swimming in the water below. He kicked the shark and swam for the shore.
As he examined the jagged tooth marks in a half-circle on his calf, Mcwilliams decided he would just try to wash off the blood and stitch himself up.