Shark leaves man thrice bitten but not shy of nature

UNITED STATES: First, it was a snake that threatened Dylan McWilliams’ life: he was hiking when a rattlesnake bit him. Next came a bear, which interrupted his sleep by trying to drag him from his tent with his head in its jaws.

Now he has completed an unlikely trifecta by surviving a shark attack, after being knocked off his surfboard in Hawaii.

Only 30 metres from shore, McWilliams, 20, from Colorado, felt an intense pain in his right calf.

‘‘At first I panicked,’’ he told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. ‘‘I didn’t know if I had lost half my leg or what.’’

When he looked down, he saw a 1.8-metre to 2m striped shark, which was probably a tiger shark, swimming beneath him. He also saw a lot of blood in the clear water.

McWilliams gave the shark a kick before swimming to shore in desperation.

‘‘That was the scariest part,’’ he said. ‘‘I didn’t know where the shark was, and I didn’t know if he would come after me again.’’

Once he had made it to shore, bystanders helped him before he was taken to hospital with deep cuts to his leg, which required stitches.

The shark attack came less than nine months after McWilliams awoke during a camping trip in Colorado to a ‘‘crunching sound and a lot of pain’’ as a bear bit down on his head.

The bear had entered his tent, and tried to drag him out as he was sleeping. He needed nine staples to the back of his neck after the attack.

McWilliams was a 19-year-old staff member at a children’s mountain camp when the attack happened.

‘‘I never thought I would be attacked by a bear,’’ he said at the time. ‘‘The bear had a hold of my head and was dragging me across the ground.’’

Bears have killed 25 people in North America over the past two decades.

Just over three years before the bear attack, McWilliams was bitten by a rattlesnake while he was hiking in Moab, Utah. Rattlesnakes kill an average of five people every year in the US.

It was a ‘‘dry bite’’, however, meaning that it contained only enough venom to make him ill for a couple of days.

‘‘My parents are grateful I’m still alive,’’ he said.

Despite the attacks by three dangerous species, McWilliams said his love for the outdoors could not be shaken. – The Times