A 20-year-old surfer from Oregon, USA, has vowed to get back in the waters despite surviving a rare shark attack.
Cole Herrington, who is 20, was waiting for the next big wave off the coast of Seaside, ORegon, when the shark attacked.
During an interwiew with NBC News, the surfer said he was sitting on his board when he hit something really hard.
Herrington, who spoke with the news agency from his bed at the Randall Children’s Hospital in Portland, added:
I was just sitting on my board and then the next thing I know I just got hit really hard. And I looked around for my board, and grabbed my board, and knew I got bit. I don’t really remember what happened. Some people said it came form behind me and that’s why I didn’t see it. It bit me and lifted me out of the water and dropped me back in.
The surfer said that he did not feel any sort of pain when he was bitten by the shark.
He continued:
When it first happened, it was like ‘What’s going on? OK this is getting real. Once you figure out that you’re getting attacked by a shark, you’re just calling out to God asking that it doesn’t come back to bite you again. You just want to get out on the rocks. Once you get on the rocks then it starts to hurt, you want to get this blood stopped.
The surfer went out of the water on his own and thanked fellow surfers that rushed him to shore.
The surfers tied a tourniquet around his badly injured left leg, which was fixed up in a surgery on the same night of the attack.
When he was asked if he would surf again, the surfer said:
Oh yeah, definitely. I love surfing. That’s probably the only thing I care about in this life, surfing and God. As soon as I can be healed up, everybody is supporting me to get back into the water.
Amy Powell, the mother of the surfer, said she is just grateful that her son is alright.
She also thanked everyone that helped out her son after the shark attack.