STEVE: MY HORROR DIVE WITH SHARKS
Injured star carried on filming
TV adventurer Steve Backshall was left in agony during a terrifying night dive with sharks.
The naturalist perforated his eardrums while submerging for a documentary in the Indo-Pacific.
But he carried on filming despite the pain and blood pouring from his ears.
He said: “I had a bit of a cold and I free-dived straight down on to the whale shark and perforated both my eardrums and came racing up to the surface in agonising pain and jumped out.
“There was blood running out of my ears and I was in agony and there was a bloody great whale shark at the back of the boat, just there in the water.”
The 48-year-old was filming documentary Shark with Steve Backshall and his first thought was not to lose footage.
He said: “It was our only chance to get it, and our only chance to do the filming so I sat going, ‘I’ve stuffed this’. After about an hour, it was still there so I put some earbuds in, to stop the water going into my head, and jumped in and we got our sequence – in agonising pain and with bleeding ears.
“It was awful, it was so, so painful. I didn’t dive down or anything, just to be back in the water was enough.”
Whale sharks are the largest shark, reaching 60ft long, but are filter feeders and no threat to humans.
When Steve got back to the UK, he had to see an ear specialist. He recalled: “He said, ‘There will be no diving for you for the next two or three months’.
“He then asked, ‘You didn’t get back in the water, did you?’ And I went, ‘Er, no! Certainly not’.”
Shark with Steve Backshall is on Sky Nature and NOW on November 7.