Open wide and I’ll get you off the hook!

IT WAS an act of kindness requiring a steady hand – and steadier nerves. But removing a large fishing hook from the mouth of this 14ft shark was no problem for diver Terri Olah.

The 53-year-old grandmother has been diving for 20 years and regularly swims with sharks off the coast of Jupiter, Florida. She noticed the dusky shark had a hook in its mouth and decided to help. Luckily, it is rare for dusky sharks, an endangered species, to attack humans.

Mother-of-three Terri, who was out with another diver, grabbed the shark by the tail and twisted it so she could grab it by the nose and remove the hook. ‘Every time we dive there is one common denominator – sharks with plenty of hooks in their mouths with debris hanging from them or wrapped around them,’ she said.

‘To see this is heartbreaking to say the least. Some of these sharks, when I go to feed them, can barely open their mouths. When we see a shark with a hook in its mouth we will always try to remove it.

‘It’s one less piece of plastic and garbage that we’ve removed from this incredible predator.’