Ep.10 | Alex Dodds & Brodie Paino | Surviving a Great White Shark Attack

Welcome to The Rodcast! — the unfiltered, salt-crusted fishing podcast based out of The Wild West of Australia

In this episode we’re joined by best mates  Alex Dodds & Brodie Paino, who lived every Waterman’s worst nightmare when a Spearfishing session was interrupted by a Great White Shark Attack that nearly cost Alex his leg.

We run through the whole ordeal start to finish - This is a Tall Tail that is sure to leave your jaw on the floor!

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INTRO TUNE
🥩 Red Bellied Black Snake - The Beefs 🥩
Courtesy of Sam Smith
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Lecca, we are back for the Rodcast mate. How you going? Good, mate. It's been a little while actually between, between little sessions, but I'm pretty excited about today. Yeah, man. We have a, um, as always, we say this every 

chat. We're pretty excited. I'm, I'm for one particular 

reason I'm really excited about.

Yeah, 

yeah. But we'll get to that. We've got two mates of mine, dosie, Alex Dodds, Brody Pano. Thanks for joining us boys. Uh, cheers boys. This should be, uh, pretty fun. But, uh, lads, we start off every episode asking, uh, our guests what they've been up to. So you've been fishing a bit or not really? What's, what's been happening?

Yeah, I've been hammering a bit of fishing at the moment. This be happy with me. But, um, yeah, got some nice dewy off Dunsborough, couple weeks back, um, over Easter and went pinky fishing with Brody last week. Couple pinky off Friday. 

It was good to get on a couple, been a while for me. Yep. My last session was like nearly a.

A year ago with the fads, I think. Yeah, right. Far out, 

long time between drinks. Yep. So it's all good, man. Life gets in the way. [00:01:00] I'll get you to just bring that microphone a little closer. Dodie, I stitch you up there. That's, that's my fault. 

How that, that's way better. All good. So Rothi, you mentioned a couple of mates of yours and like, it's my first time meeting 'em seem like ripping fellas, either I need someone to set us up.

Yeah, yeah. These guys. 

So, so I met Brody. Um, so at the time I was, um, going down to a gym in Miami and called the set that a friend of Brody and I and Brody's, uh, former coach Ben Vickers had just started. He's a MMA coach. Some people might know the name. He's actually the head coach of Jack D who's about to fight for the, for the world to eight world title in the UFC on the weekend, which is pretty sick for us boys.

You know, um, I don't know Jack personally, you guys know him very well, but, um, he's pretty sick for us to watch. But anyway, I was down there and I was actually just about to take over the striking program there. So I was gonna coach the sort of beginners classes down at the set. And, uh, Brody came in for a class and Benny paired us up together.

So, um, yeah, Brody and I sort of hit it off over mutual interest in diving and, and boxing and that sort of thing. Bro's [00:02:00] actually hit me with a fucking killer. I was shot. Gonna ask who won that little section. Uh, so what we didn't spa, we did like a little bit of, um, sort of drill sparring where you sort of move, go one for one, sort of hitting each other, one attack, one defense.

But I remember the gym that I come from was largely a lot real focus on, uh, using your reach for the most part. And, uh, Brody's gym's very technical. They're, they're known for head movement and having a really boxing heavy style of MMA and, uh, bro's hit me with this liver shot and I've never been hit with a liver shot like that in training before.

And I was like, whoa. Holy fuck. And if anyone that's ever been hit with a liver shot, it makes you want to shit piss, vomit and cry at the same time. Like, it's fucking horrible. But I felt that horrible. Yeah. But, uh, bros, bros and I hit it off and sort of figured out that we had a mutual interest in fishing and diving and that sort of thing.

Something that Brody said to me that day. I was, I was like, yeah, respect. He, I go, how come you never sort of went to, you know, followed Della and went down the pro fight and fight And he goes, man, I just wanna go fishing. Hey, [00:03:00] that's all I wanna do. You can't do both. I was like, yeah, we're gonna get along.

So 

well, tell us a little bit about your early fishing. Brody. I'll start with you. Where, where did you start fishing? 

Oh, I reckon I started fishing probably down in Gracetown. The folks have always had a little place down there, so we used to do a bit off the rocks and stuff. Nothing too serious. Um, we, uh, we never had a boat, so it was always kind of beach, but, um, straight outta school got my first tinny and, and that's kind of where we all got into, like diving as a group and fishing as a group.

We were just kind of started frothing really. We were getting into it like all the time. Every good weekend we were going up north or just doing, yeah, like salmon or whatever when it come to Perth and, um. Pretty much straight outta school. Really? Probably. Yeah. 

Just getting outdoors. What about yourself, 

Dossie?

Um, I was pretty lucky. My whole family's been into fishing since I was super young, so my grandparents all fished. Um, my dad's a keen fisherman. Um, where'd you grow up? Uh, I grew up [00:04:00] in Perth, but we moved up to Exmouth for a couple years. Oh. I was sick. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome chat about that.

I was in, um, yeah, I was in year one. I think we went up there, fished a couple years up there just with dad and fam and then we moved up to RAHA for a couple years after that. Garath. Yeah. We didn't do as much fishing in Gartha, but still got out there, which is good. Yeah. What was 

it like gonna school in Exmouth?

Yeah, it was great. Loved it. It's just, it's such a cool town to grow up in. Yeah. Super lax and beach oriented at that stage. 

You are 95 or you're 96? Nine five. Yeah. Yeah. So you're the same age as me. You would've been six years old at year one, eight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that. So. Is that sort of era that Exmouth wasn't really as well established in the fishing area then?

Oh, no way. It's completely 

different to what it is now. Yeah, it pretty, yeah. No key are a little 

boho gypsy shops. Nah, nah. All fisherman town and that's it. Yeah, yeah, 

yeah. So it was good to see it like that before it sort of blew up, but when did, yeah, I love that place. 

When did you two meet then? In nine In school?

Yeah. Yeah. Year nine [00:05:00] 

ac. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what just started hanging out? Both had a what? Love for fishing through there or was it training or what was it? Um, we just 

started hanging out at school really, and then we both were sort of into fishing and diving and stuff like that, 

but that's sort of the age where you follow what your mates are doing too.

Your mates. Nice, nice. How you sort of influence what you get into? We kind 

of, yeah, like I think I bought a tinny, like straight Outta school pretty much. And then what was it? It was a 4.2 meter SCO skipper. See Wicked Bus. It was actually a Ripper boat. Theabout. Theabout. Yeah. We called it Little 40 Yamaha on the back front console.

Where 

does the name come from, bro? About 

his nickname's Brono. So. Gotcha. It's just Theabout. There you go. It was a pretty simple Yeah. Runabout Fish about, huh? 

Yeah, so, um, it was the same one that we went out actually on. 

Oh yeah. Sick. Yeah. Have you still got that boat? 

Nah, it's gone. Nah. Yeah. Have you got a boat still or you Uh, nah, so I've had another boat since then.

Yeah. It was like a 5 2 5 Fraser. 

Oh, wicked. Um, 

yeah, just like a, [00:06:00] yeah, it was actually old aluminum thing. Yeah. Um, apparently they made aluminum boats for a year. Yeah. Okay. And this was one of them, so it was like a 96 or a 97 hole. Um, buck was probably five meters of boat and four meters of deck. It was just, yeah.

Yeah. The front of it was right up, right up the nose. But um, yeah, it was a good, good boat. Yeah, it served us well. Yeah. Good, good fishing, diving boat. 

So, um, that's the, the, the main reason I've got you in today. So when Brody and I met, we ended up sort of exchanging details and talking about diving a bit and Brody actually invited me up spearing with, with you guys with Dossie as well and we went up to Sandy Kate and we sort of bled that day.

It was a pretty shitty, ugly day on the water. Similar the day we just had up Savannah's leg and uh, I actually caught the prop on that trip. Would you believe it? That's new mate. Yeah, yeah. God, I made a habit of catching props, boys like I reckon. Home boat, Lex boat, nice boat. There's always magnet. Yeah.

But um, [00:07:00] yeah, I think we got one pinky for the whole day. We went up there night. I think we tried fish for sharks on the beach, just in the bay there at Sandy. Sandy, Kate. But. Um, I, I newly met the boys, so we kind of went our separate ways. After that trip, I'd sort of keep in touch, but it's not like I was so close to these boys that I was chatting to 'em every week or whatever.

So little bit of time went on. I think it was maybe three months after that, and I hit Brody up and I said, do you wanna go spearing? He goes, no, man. Probably won't get in the water again. Hey. I'm like, what the fuck? These boys are keen at, like, they were in the water faster than I could fuck. Keep up with like, super keen thinking.

That's a bit odd. And then in the meantime, um, between me hitting Brody up to go spearing again, and the, the day out that we'd had together, I'd heard on the news, and I'm sure a lot of people that are listening had heard about a couple of surfers in quote, I say surfers that had been attacked off coastal Lehman.

So, and it was a great white, [00:08:00] somebody had come in and been, uh, the, the rescue helicopter had come in and rescued the, the victim. In that moment, I put two and two together and I said, fuck, I hope it's not these boys that got done. And sure enough it was Dossie that got attacked by a great white off the coast of Lehman.

So that's why we've got you in today, lads. I still haven't heard the full story. I've listened to another podcast that you guys are on the grin, reapers two. Two mates of ours. But I want to do a bit of a deep dive if it's cool with you guys on what the fuck happened that day. 'cause it was definitely close to home for me to hear that that had happened to you boys.

And fuck yeah, it was a bit embarrassing hitting Brody up and going, do you wanna go diary And not, not knowing anything about it. So walk us through what happened on that day. What, what was it? Just one of your standard spin trips where you do a quick dash up the coast, quick, quick strike mission and it all turned to shit.

What happened? Take us through it from the start. 

Yeah. Well initially we were gonna go up to Shark Bay for about a week. Yep. And, um, the weather just didn't, it just turned, went, got a bit windy. We. [00:09:00] Only in one boat, so we said probably not gonna risk going all up there for just, just me and Dossie having a ses.

Yeah. Long way. Yeah, long way to go. Might be pretty shit. Um, but north of Perth round, you know, like during and onwards was looking clean and good. Yeah. Um, yeah, so we pretty much just pulled the trigger on a couple of days camping up in Lehman and, um, yeah, I mean it was, well where do you start with it going wrong?

Like the, it actually, it started when we couldn't get the boat. Trailer lock off. Oh, there you go. Bad things coming. There were signs. Yeah, signs. I've never had a problem with this lock. There was a couple signs. Yeah. And it just, we just couldn't get it and couldn't get it. Couldn't get, I was like, fiddling the key for ages.

And I remember looking up at Dosie going, fuck is this a sign something? So is this in your 

driveway? Yeah. 

You, I was on, on the grass out the front. So the hitch, the hitch for the um, trailer. 

You've got a lock on it, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a lock. So some something someone, the universe got whatever you fucking believe in, never had a problem with before.

He's telling you don't go. 

Yeah. And bro looked [00:10:00] straight up at me and I was, he was like, you remember it specifically? Yeah. He was like, is this a fucking sign? Said I was, was like, nah mate. Nah, I was ready to get grinder, but sort of in the back of my mind like, shit, this could be a sign. Yeah. Could, well, 

yeah.

Hindsight maybe it was Hey. But anyway, yeah, like got it off whatever. Made our way up north. Got got into um, I don't even like it is the, probably just north of Lehman. What about, quite called 

Gumtree Bay? 

Yeah, Gumtree Bay. 

A lot of, um, a lot of cray fishermen in there. Hey. Yeah. Shacks and stuff are, yeah, 

where were, it was kind of, it was just like a little gravel track off Indian Ocean Drive.

Yep. But there was no real sign posting or, um, yeah, there's, that's not been marked at all. 

Cliff heads near there. It's a good spot. Like fishing outta there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. 

Yeah. We just set up swag and, um, got to about, I know 12, 12 2, like between 12 and two, whatever it was. Yeah. About midday. Um, and just said, oh, let's go for a flick.

Let's go for a dive, whatever. And, um, it was, it was, was that pretty like [00:11:00] stereotypical sharky day? Like Okay. It was gloomy, overcast. It was cold. It was wet. Yeah, it was overcast. It was just a bit 

What time of year is this? 

This 

was June. June, yeah. June 23rd. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So midyear. I'll never forget 

that day.

Winter And what year was this? This was probably three 20 years. 2021. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, 

yeah. Yeah. We pretty much just, um, yeah, drop, like drop anchor. We said we'll have a dive. First up, try to drop, anchor and, and have a look around and. That we did, we jumped in the water. Dosie was first in, I remember just checking the anchor, making sure everything was all sweet.

And it was just the two of us. We had no backup boat. We had no driver. Yep. Um, and by the time we jumped in, like there was, there was a nice little baldy straight under the boat. It was perfect. So we much just dropped down and just popped that straight away. Yep. Um, 

probably thinking at that point. Fuck yeah.

It's on. Oh, 

you know what it's like as soon as you get your first fish, you just, yeah. Momentum. Start swimming around. That's probably another 

sign that there's a fish straight under the boat. Get back outta the [00:12:00] water. Have that one and get out. Hindsight's a beautiful, yeah, it is. 

Of course, of course. You wanted another one though.

You know, make the day worthwhile. But, um, yeah, no, so that was, that was one thing. Got like, kind of bled that and just threw it onto the deck, you know, we'll come back to it. Um, started doing. Kind of map of the boat. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It 

was like beautiful, like clear water, like right where the boat was. And then we sort of, yeah, as Brody said, we were doing like a bit of a loop around and then it slowly started to get like a little bit murkier as we like got out.

Um, so yeah. And what, what depth the invoice? Like we were anchored in about seven meters, I reckon. Yeah. And then there was a ledge about 50 meters from our boat that dropped off to probably like 12 meters. 11, 12 meters. Something worth 

mentioning. Probably a key de detail that I've missed here is the spot that you guys are diving is fucking notoriously sharky.

There's a seal colony out there. You're at the Beagle Islands, right? 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Which 

we didn't know at the [00:13:00] time. Gotcha. Yeah, right. We, we didn't, I didn't know that. Yeah. It was actually my first time to like the beagle eye. I'd never dived it before. I know you'd had a crack at it before. 

Yeah. Good mate of mine.

Jeremy McManus, he put me on the spot just a couple weeks prior to this. Had you dived it? Yeah. Yeah. I dove it that time. Yeah. Okay. Um. I didn't think about sharks once. I didn't know that yet. You're right. Had the largest sea lion colony in wa. Wow. Yeah. On these islands. 

It's not, it's, it's a bit weird when you're diving.

'cause I, I do a little bit of spirit too. I mean, like I said, when I found out that you'd been attacked Izy, it was a little bit close to home. Fucking scary. 'cause I was only diving with you. It must have only been like mid-May, like this sort of time of year that I was diving with. So I was like, fuck. Like this is really close to home.

I never thought came outta nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. You kind of hear about it. The media pumps it up. Like it's the one topic that seems to come up when anybody who's a standard punter hasn't spent a lot of time around the water. Like I've grown up, like you guys surfing my whole life, been in the water. I've never really seen too many [00:14:00] sharks up until the last few years.

So I think when you get in the water. Def. I always think about sharks when I jump in the water, but once you're in there and you're actually focused on stalking a fish, it kind of that that goes away. I don't know for you guys, but for me, I don't really think about it all too much till I actually see one and then it's time to pay attention to 'em.

Is that how you guys sort of a 

hundred percent. Yeah. Go about it. Same as surfing. As soon as you get your first wave, I feel like that just leaves my mind, you know, all that sharpness, you're just kind of going about the motions and that's what it felt like. You know, popping that first Baldy and putting that in the deck and I was thinking, fuck, we're on for a wicked day here.

We're on for a wicked trip. Yeah. Like this is gonna be the start of an awesome set. The tone. Set the tone. Yeah. The vibes are high. Yeah. Um, but yeah, like as you said, we just kind of started to do like a bit of a lap around the boat and then the water just got really murky. Just got like really turned up and um, it was like a layer.

The top third was just ah, like a silt layer sort of thing. Silt, yeah, I know tides and what, however current limes, we [00:15:00] were just in a patch of real dirty water. Yeah. Um, but we renewed like down the bottom of that. 'cause I, I watched Dosie come up, um, and like you could see like, there was, we kind of said that there's fish down there, eh?

Yeah. Yeah. So like you literally, it was clear for the first three meters and then there was like a silt line that was probably like two meters deep up, um, tall. You'd swim through that and then it was just clear again, and then there was plenty of fish on the bottom. Yeah. But great spot. Um, we didn't end up shooting anything on that little 

ledge, but 

interrupted.

Yeah, we got 

interrupted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what it was on that, it was on that dive, that shit went bad or what? Yeah, it was that drop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 20 minutes. Second, 

third drop of the day. 

20 minutes in the light being in the water. So what happened? 

Shit, 

what happened? So, so Dossie came up from, from his drop on that kind of.

It's on our second spot there. 

We're doing the one up, one down sort of. Yeah. Yeah. So [00:16:00] for people that aren't familiar with 

diving, that might be listening. So I don't know if you guys have done a dive course, but any, like, it's pretty much day one that you get taught buddy diving and how to do it properly.

So you never dive two people at once. You've always got somebody on the surface and as your diver is surfacing, if you're especially on those longer drops, 20 meters plus even fif 10 15, you'll go down as a good dive buddy will meet you halfway. Because a lot of the blackouts that happen with diving, um, happen sort of in that top part of the water column where somebody thinks that they're gonna be okay.

You're sort of running out the end of your gas tank and that's when people faint. They'll actually break the surface and then they'll, they'll black out at that point. So you've, you're doing all the right things, right? You, you. Practicing the right dive buddy technique and Yeah. Looking after each other.

Yeah. Well that was another sketchy thing of the dive. 'cause once you dove down below that little silt line, I couldn't see Brody, he couldn't see me. Mm. It was sort of like invisible. That's a 

shitty feeling too as well, isn't it? Yeah. When you can't see dive buddy, you're 

sort of waiting for them to come up at [00:17:00] some sort of point.

Yeah, like a tick. They're gonna pop up like 

a tick, tick tick in your head. You're just going, come on, come on, come on. Alright, cool. Sweet. Alright. Now I can breathe up and my heart dropped. My heart rate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

But I was pretty keen to get down there to be honest. So as soon as he like popped his head up, then I just pretty much took my last breath.

Yep. And went down and slowly like, you know, between like 11 and 14 meters is like my limit for diving. Like any more than that. I can't really spend too much time on the bottom. Yeah. So I started to do like a really slow dive down, just try not to use too much air in my lungs or yeah. Just kind of cruised my way down and um.

As I swam like through the layer of silt, I could just see and it was like perfectly in front of me. It was the first thing that come into my line of sight was just this like big round bare rock, like it just looked like a big boulder in the ocean. But clean 

stationary or was it moving? 

No, it was stationary.

It was just this big round [00:18:00] like gray rock piece of race. Yeah. Like yeah, just the cleanest rock on the seabed floor and No, this is, it didn't look fucking rock. Yeah, it didn't look normal. Yeah, like I, I was like this fucking, you know, they usually got moss or whatever, a re coming off of it, but then bit of fluff as I got further down through the silt and then, then that silt started to like open up more.

I could. Then I just saw its fin and then as I went further down, then it's like nose popped out and then as I was like, you know, belay below that layer of silt, then it just had, I had the whole view of the shark just right underneath me, so it just, sitting on top of the reef, I'm probably. Three meters above the shark and probably four meters below Dossie.

Oh. And I just like, yeah, 

it's gonna be quite goose sunk. 

Like fuck. Just turned my head up just and just looked at it. It was just in shock. Like something that just zapped the air straight outta my lungs. And I'm just sinking. Like [00:19:00] 

I, I just wanna mention here, because you boys won't say it, you two are hell men, like you two aren't like, like Brody, you fought, you know, you used to hop into a cage voluntarily and scrap with fucking grown men, which is scary.

DODs are you surf big waves like diving's a scary thing. You guys have got fucking fair set of figs on you. Like the, there's something like that. I don't care how big of a man you are that is gonna take the fucking breath outta you, fucking, fucking that is gonna your asshole fuck up. 

So you go straight down on top of this thing.

I was dead set. 12 to six, right on top of it. No way. And what's crazy is like I went down. Less than five seconds after he came up. Yep. You know what I mean? So it must have just watched him come up and just slowly, like, just crept in at the same time. 'cause then I've gone down, you know, no more than five, 10 seconds later, like by the time I've got down.

So where's it 

sitting in the water column 

it's sitting on? So we were in that ledge would've been about [00:20:00] six. So seven to 11 meters I'd say. Yeah. And it was sitting on top of the reef on in, in the seven meter part. Like right on top. Fins tucked. Just still. Oh just the like the tiniest little bit of like cruise on him, but pretty much dead still.

So his fins were, so this is a fact that I've picked up from people that know shark behavior. We're you're talking is fins on the bottom? I dunno what fins they are, but down like that, that sort of Yeah. Peal fins. 

They tighten him up tight, like tucked into his body. So couldn't't see 

him. So what I've been told is that that's when a shark's ready for speed.

Yeah. So if I know if shark's swimming around or lurk and I've just shot a fish and there's a shark swimming around, if they're p, if they're, what'd you say? Pectoral fins. If they're out to the side, I'm not too worried. They're worried. Yeah. I'm just gonna keep an eye on 'em. But if their fins are down, I'm like, fucking here.

Have that fish and I've got my gun ready. Poke to poke it. Or if you need to let off shot in the thing. But 

yeah. Well mate that, that's actually what was my thought. 'cause like I'm on [00:21:00] top of it knowing that Dossie can't see me and I can't see him, and oh, I can go up through the layer of silt and tell him, but then I've lost sight of it.

You know what I mean? So in my head I'm like, fuck, I, you know, and I'm right on top of it. I could fucking pop it. Yeah. You know what I mean? And just see what happens. You've had that quick thought, is my gun just gonna bounce off it, you know? Yeah. For one and two, like, that's my shot. I'm fucking done after that.

Well, I've got a fucking knife on my leg. You're bringing a knife. I've got a good left. And all this has gotta go through your head like that as well. One breath. Yeah. Yeah. Within that, within, you know, probably three to five seconds of me processing that, it fucking flicked his tail. And it was off actually.

Oh man. So there was no, there was no time for me to signal to Dodie who was at the surface. There was no time for me to even think about a shot because it, it, it just, it moved its tail to the left and then it didn't do much. And then it moved its tail to the right and it was just fucking off, like straight up.

Stuart, do you reckon it picked up 

on your, would you say panic? Would you say you 

[00:22:00] panicked in that 

moment? Fucking 

oath. Not. I wouldn't say I panicked. 'cause like I genuinely had thoughts going through my head as to like how I could deal with this went on all how I could deal with this. Do you know what I mean?

You were being considered and 

I was, I was frightened like that. It sensed my fear, I think for sure. Yeah. You know, and because like I knew that we were in trouble. Like there's a fucking made every part of a four meter shark below us that that is looking like he's ready to pounce on one of us. So I knew we were in strife, I just didn't know how we were kind of gonna deal with it.

Wow. So do you, do you, yeah. Keep mate, I'm fucking You're lost dude. Fucking hell. Story. So what, tell us what happened. Keep going. Us, what happened? So what happened? 

So as I said, like it moved its tail to the left, flex his tail to the right and it just kind of took off from underneath me. And as it took off from underneath me, it started to come back.

It came a little bit up and it came back right towards me. So, oh, no, I say me to UA rothi as it came, like nose on directly at me. Buck off that 

[00:23:00] close. 

Yeah. It wasn't far. I could almost fucking if I, the, the other thing was I was like coming at me, so I knew that it was, it was like, you know, yeah. It was, it was attacking, it was me attack.

I'm trying to like pull my gun up to like, get, get, maybe get a shot off at it. Yeah. In that time, which isn't 

easy, by the way, was the resistance through the water was killing me. People don't dive. Yeah. So you can't just pull your, it's not like if you've got a pistol or a rifle in your hand, you can change like fucking an SAS style, right?

Like, you can't just change where you're pointing your gun. Like you've got that, um, resistance of water. The water, yeah. Yeah. Your, and your rubbers flap too, as you pull your gun through the water, that, that's something that slows your gun down. So, yeah. Yeah. That takes time. 

Yeah. When I had like, you know, the handle on one hand and the, the.

Another shaft and the other, I'm trying to like you holding it like a rifle. Pretty much. Yeah. I was probably, I wasn't at the end. Maybe if I had my hand at the end of the gun, I probably could have pulled it up a bit quicker, even more leverage on it. But I was kind of like, towards the end of the gun, um, even just to try like, you know, poke it [00:24:00] off at some point.

But it kind of came facing me. And then at the last second it just went nose up, showed me this full white belly and just went flicking straight past me, like another flick of its tail. And it, it launched, it just smashed like six to 12. 12, yeah, six to 12 just launched straight past me through the, through the silt.

I lost it pretty much just came and just smashed dossey at the surface and then, yeah. Oh 

wow. Fucking hell. Did you watch Dodie get hit? 

N Nah. See I was still below the silt at this point, so I saw, I saw it's like white belly, like, and then it's, and then it's tail basically, and then it just disappeared.

So Did did you think it, it had just. Did you think it was gonna attack him or did you think it, it just gotten out of your, like it had just turned last minute. 

I thought that like, it, it had bumped him. Yep. Like big time. But I, when I got, I was still booting for the [00:25:00] surface. When, when I, when I got my head out the water, both Dosie was in the air and the shark was also in the air.

So like, the shark, the shark, when I poked my head out was like head and gills out of the water coming back in, like dropping. So it launched like that? It, yeah, it launched. It was way, it was out of the water. 

Like your watch on the documentary sort of air jaw star, probably, 

you know, a close to a meter out the water, I'd say.

And then Dodie, when he was coming back, he was kind of upside down, like his feet were in the sky as he came back into the water. 

No. How do you go sitting here listening to that part of that story? 

Oh, I've lived it in my head so many times. So it's like it still rattles you. Yeah, just hearing, I was thinking about it, you know, let, let's rewind it 

by the sounds of it.

We're rewinding only half a second here, but from your perspective, Dossie, we, where did the shark situation start for you? And you, you didn't see it, did you? You didn't see it when you dropped. Obviously [00:26:00] otherwise you would've 

been like 

fucking, and that was the scar scariest 

thing. Like I had no idea this thing was, it was obviously hunting us.

I don't know how far fire 

sounds like it's sort of, as you've come up, it's sort of must have half come up for a bit of a look and then a 

hundred percent. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I sort of think that it knew it was, I feel like it was watching me, that's why it saw me go down and then come back up to the surface.

Yeah. And then it was waiting for that opportune time to attack. 'cause it obviously thought I was a seal. Right. And that's what color wedding were you wearing 'em? Black. Okay. Full black. Everything makes I was the perfect sealer. 

Yep. That makes a bit more sense then the contrast. So anybody that hasn't dived before, when you look up at your dive buddy from the bottom, I wear a blue wet at the moment.

I've had green, I've had black, I've had lots of different colored dive. Wes, I've got a camo blue wet at the moment. My mate, my main dive partner, Paul, wears a green rife wetsuit. So it's a camouflage wedding that blends in with the reef. When you're looking down from the surface, when you look up, [00:27:00] you cannot tell what color that wet is because the sun comes from, you know, it's coming from above all that you can see as a diver.

That is on the bottom. We're talking free diving here, people, just so people know, we're not on scuba, we're free diving. All you can see is the outline. That's a silhouette. So that's, that's what a shark's seeing a fish. Pretty much. Yeah, exactly. Maybe color wouldn't have even mattered. Fuck, who knows? Until someone does it study on it.

You'll never know, will you? 

Yeah. I'm not too sure on the science behind it, but I think they do just see silhouettes and shapes. But yeah, I'm not, hundred 

percent if anyone wants a visual, go and watch air jewels. Yeah. Yeah. So 

all, so I want to now you give us your, your version of what happened on that, that dive and then we'll get into after This is fucking crazy.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was just a normal dive. Right. So Brody's dove down, um, I'm assuming he's gonna be down there for like, I don't know, 30 seconds to a minute, hopefully shoot a fish and then he's gone down. I've lost sight of [00:28:00] him through that layer of silt. And um, then like, maybe like five, 10 seconds later, I just see his, like the top of his head start to emerge, like through the layer of silt.

And I just see his fins like, and he's looking down at something and his fins are just like swimming as fast as he could. I'm just seeing him looking down. I'm like, what the fuck is he looking at? And why is he swimming away so, so fast, you know? And then as I sort of clocked that just to my left, I don't know why instinctively I sort, 'cause I was horizontal in the water.

Like laying, yeah. Horizontal. I sort of instinctively just like pulled my legs sort of in like slightly. And then as soon as I've done that and sort of like bowled up a bit, I've just seen this like huge like mouth, like pretty much just like slowly er, well not slowly, like it was rocketing straight out, like out of the darkness.

And it's, um, yeah, [00:29:00] its mouth was just like wide open from the very like, get go. And I was just like, what dude that 

is, 

fuck this hot man. I would fuck. I reckon they're an amazing animal. Okay. I reckon great. Whites a fucking cool lads. Oh, 

they're 

awesome on a tv. 

I, I would be happy. Or maybe from a boat my whole 

fucking life like experience on the water is cool.

We all know here that you see some amazing things that 99.9% of people, it's fishermen, divers being out in that water. You people never see. Right. And I take, I do not take any of those moments for granted. And I appreciate that. I'm fortunate enough to see those things. That's why we love it. But Exactly mate.

Yeah. A great white shark can fuck right off. I do not want anything. I'd be happy to never go a day seeing one from, whether it's from the boat, in the water, from a distance. I'm happy. Just stay over there. Mind your business. I mind. Keep it on, keep. Yeah, just leave me alone. Pretty 

unbelievable creature.

Yeah, [00:30:00] we, we'll get to that. '

cause I do want to hear about your perspective on, on Sharks now and the current issues that we have. But let's go back to, you've seen the mouth open. What? What happened after 

that? Yeah, so from the jump, oh my God. Yeah. From the jump its mouth was like as wide as it could possibly get.

And then all I could see was its tail, like flapping, like a meter from either side. It was just like hooking as fast as it could. And I was just watching this thing like, what the fuck? And it was just, it just closed the distance so fast and before I knew it, it had like pretty much just hit me like a truck.

Bit down on my lower right leg and just kept with that momentum and then just like chomped down on my leg and then we'd both like up out of the water just from the momentum of his, of the speed he was going. Um, I remember I just like was looking in the water and then all of a sudden I'm up out of the water, like sort of [00:31:00] pushing off this shark's nose as we're sort of flying both up, up and back, which was, yeah, that's pretty surreal to look back on.

Um, yeah. So you like full airborne. I was fully outta the water. Yeah. Like this thing was not stopping doing money. How 

high do you reckon it got you outta the water? 

Oh, it wouldn't have been any more than a meter. Like still a 

meters a meter outta the's. Imagine. Imagine like one of us trying to throw a person outta the water.

Like 

I saw it, like that's just pure power. As I got my head out, we like when I was still booting and it was like gills and like everything outta the water Gils was out the water. That's like not, its maybe like not its dorsal fin or anything like that, but like a good chunk of its head was out the water.

Even an animal that big to push itself outta the water, like you wa I referred to Air Jaws before, like you watch how fast they come outta the water, it's like a fucking submarine on sterile. I can 

see the footage now on some of the stuff that they do of them, of them actually coming up. So I can, I'm pretty much [00:32:00] imagining it was textbook.

It was exactly like that. It's exactly what you think. Yeah. And how so how far do you reckon it was when you first like computed, fuck, that's a great white coming at me to attack me. 

I reckon it was probably four meters. That's a, 

that's a fair 

way down. Yeah, it was probably, uh, maybe three meters. Yeah, I'd say three meters as it was coming outta that foot line.

Um, yeah, that's when I first clocked it. 

And this isn't your first, we'll get to this as well, but this isn't your first experience with sharks. I know you boys, we've, you've told a pretty epic tail on the boat that day. I don't know if you remember, but we'll get to that. It's, you knew it was a great what from the 100 you saw?

It was, well, Brody obviously saw it before me, but when I saw it for the, like in a second, I knew it was a great white. Yeah. Like you can just, the mouth was so wide and you just know that distinct, like super long, like huge teeth. Like the teeth. Yeah. It, you couldn't mistake it. It was just classic great white 

without like [00:33:00] bringing up bad memories.

Did you think I'm, fuck, I'm gone here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Yeah. I, um, yeah, it wasn't 

that, that was like the end of it, you know what I mean? Like, I, we also still had to get back to the boat. I, I want to 

get to all that, but like, we'll go through the whole thing. But you, you, as soon as you computed what it is you did, you, you would've thought, 

I thought I was fucked.

I was like, yep, this is it. I, it was just dead silence in the water, but this missile just rocketing at like full speed, and I'm just in my head like, holy fuck. Yep, this is it. Oh, man. And then it wasn't until we started swimming back to the boat after that, that I thought he was gonna, we'll get to it, but I thought he was gonna come back and like, drop me in half.

Yeah. And that's when I was like, having those thoughts. Like, funnily enough I thought, well, am I gonna go to heaven or hell wow. That's literally the first thing that I thought I was literally about to ask. You thought, 

thought, did you have a thought in that moment? Like, like I, I've come, like I've done some, nothing like that, but I have had moments before where I've thought maybe I might die [00:34:00] here or whatever.

I have thought about my people, you know, like my mom, my partner, my brothers, my family and shit. Did you have those thoughts? Yeah, well, you hear people like 

their life flashing before their eyes, like their whole life, sort of like a film reel sort of thing, or thinking about loved ones. But nah, I literally, I was just thinking like, it was like an acceptance.

I was like, am I gonna go to heaven or hell? And that was, we grew up at a Catholic school, so that was sort of, that was it. Yeah. Ingrained. 

Ingrained. Did you pray that you did enough church? Yeah. 

Yeah. I, I want to get back to you in a second, but did you, at that point, were you feeling any pain? 

It wasn't pain, but it felt like I'd been hit by a truck or like a car or something.

Like, it wasn't like, obviously my or Della was, yeah. Or Della.

That'd probably hurt more, but yeah, it wasn't like my, my leg was obviously shredded up. With bite marks and stuff, but it was more like the impact that I felt. Yeah. Just real quick, 

can you, can you show, let your leg Oh yeah. I saw you [00:35:00] at 

work. 

You can see, yeah. It's a hectic 

scar. 

Wow. Fuck, 

man. 

Yeah, I saw Dossy up at work.

We were at staying at the same camp in Port Headland, and I hadn't seen him yet, and I was like, looked down at his leg. I couldn't help myself. Felt like rude. 

Fucking show you that leg. If you didn't put your legs 

down, where do you reckon it would've hit you? Like a hundred percent. It was aiming for like my head and my torso.

Oh. Like, fuck that little mung girl was going for like Yeah. Proper shot. The proper shot. And it like, I was lucky I saw Brody in that he, he basically saved your life. He turned, he saved my life. He's lucky that 

he turned into that. Stated position. Hey. Yeah. And not laying flat on the hop. 'cause you would've been Oh yeah.

Bitten in half. Yeah. 

Your legs are naturally when you're in the water too. Again, for those people that don't dive, if you kind of just relax, your legs seem to drop. Yeah, I think too. Yeah. It's like come underneath 

you. 

Yeah. Any effort that it takes when you are relaxing on the surface is mainly at the hips, I would say through the abs and the hips, don't you reckon?

Yeah. Because your legs wanna drop. Yeah. So you've naturally gone [00:36:00] into that position. 

Yeah. I don't know, I think it was just like a, I don't know what you'd call it, but it was just like a reflex. Like I knew something was wrong and I knew he was looking at something down there. I hadn't clocked that it was a shark, but like I felt like I needed to put something in between, like obviously your head and your torso, sort of like your vital like region of your body.

So I don't know why I thought it, but I just initial instinct was to just put something in between whatever was there and paid off. Quick sidetrack. 

Do you guys know Layton Bradfield runs 20 talk. No. The mental health thing? No, I don't think so. La Leighton's really into his dive and I've dive with him a few times, rip a bloke and he dives out of, uh, ledge a little bit and he told me a technique that is just crazy to me, hearing this story now, um, it's put it into perspective a bit for me, but what he does is they have like a wake boarding tow rope behind the boat and to look for ground.

They'll have somebody at idle speed and they'll tow him around 

like a fucking lure behind the boat. 

We've done 

that. We've 

done that. [00:37:00] 

What? But that, that's true. You're just a big fucking lure now I'm thinking. But they do it 

in South 

Africa. Yeah. Like we talk about about. Fishing at a, at a technical level, you know, with some of our guests, and I'm, I'm thinking of a pop and how, or a surface lure and how a fish, like how Mac skipping guard.

You just skipping exactly like how a Mackey hit. Have you seen guys seen a fucking Mackie hit a stick bait before? Like from the bottom where they fly out the water, 

you're effectively trolling yourself as a giant fucking shark bait. Yeah, we've done, that's just, but not, we 

found one of the best holes I, we've ever like found doing that.

We've never been able to get, get back into it since. 

Oh, fucking hell. I reckon we need to write a little book about this lad. But anyway. Okay, so you've been munched, you go, you've got a question. Yeah. 

I want to go Brody, back to your perspective with this one because, so like your thoughts now we've, before we get to the swim, back to the boat, what are you thinking when you've come up and you've actually seen your mate get smashed?

Are you thinking he's [00:38:00] gone or at, 

at the time, I, I didn't, I didn't know how bad it was. I didn't actually know that you got. Like, I knew, like he, I saw that he was got hammered and he got launched. But how bad was a bite though? And, and if it did bite, like I, I didn't really know. We, but we just kind of, um, once Dosie came back into the water, I, I was just like a stunned mother.

I just, we just stared at each other. Like, he popped his head up and we both just looked at each other and it was just like, 

no words needed, 

get to the boat. Yeah. Like there's just, we're. Just get to the boat. Yeah. How far is, is the boat away? The boat is probably about 30 meters, I'd say About 30 meters, eh?

Yeah. 

Fuck. So that, that is the longest 30 meters of your life, 30 meters felt like three Ks? Yeah, it did. It 

felt like a long time, especially with one and the whole time I, I like, I don't know how you were thinking, but I was just thinking it's, it's coming back. It's coming back. It's coming back. Like I was just waiting for this, 

keep going.

Just waiting for it. [00:39:00] So I was, I was looking down, I had my, had my mask on and I still had my gun in my left hand and I was just swimming with my right and, and just kicking as hard as I could, but couldn't see anything 'cause I was still in such shit water. So I had no idea. So then I just started looking at the boat.

You were kind of just beside me, slightly behind me, and then like in that I, I knocked my mask off, so that was just fucking head headbut me. I was sinking like, this is a fucking disaster. You know what I mean? Like, this could not get any worse right now, but I feel like we're about to get fucking bitten in half.

But 

yeah, 

we got back to the boat, so I, I threw my gun in and then I grabbed the gunnel and pulled myself over. And then in the time that I got myself over, Dodie was right there and I was able, well, he, he was there, he got his hands on and just grabbed him by the weight belt and just fucking ripped him in.

So you, you were able 

to swim back to the boat, Dodie, you were, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you, that's, that's shows you the power of adrenaline and the, the, the fight and flight response because your heel [00:40:00] got fucking mangled. 

Yeah, I mean it was pretty busted up. Um, but your fin had been blown off, hadn't it? Yeah.

So I had one fin on my left foot. The right was gone. I dunno where, where that went. Yeah. Um, did you lose anything else? Yeah, my spear gun that got completely knocked outta my hand. Um, yeah, mask was down around my neck, couldn't see a thing. Um, so yeah, I was pretty much swimming, like yeah, as low as you possibly could go, like with a b leg and a half flipper pretty fast.

Were you face down or back? 

What? How were you swimming back in the past? Oh, I was just 

swimming face down, freestyle as fast as I could. I was, I, I knew I wasn't gonna be able to see where the shark was coming from, just 'cause it was too murky. So I was just like, let's just get to the boat. Knock element of 

acceptance.

Was there blood and shit everywhere or was it, you didn't know at that point how bad things were? I didn't 

know until we got to the boat and then I looked at my leg and then it. Yeah. Pretty, pretty evident that it was busted up. Yeah. Oh my God. But 

that's when I like realized [00:41:00] that he actually got bit, yep.

Yeah. And then we were just kind of like, fuck, what do we do now? Yeah. How long 

did that, how long do you actually reckon it took you to get to the boat? I. 

What do you reckon? Like, like 15 seconds? Yeah, probably like 20, I reckon. Yeah. 20, 30 seconds. It was a d It was a decent swim. Yeah, it was a decent swim.

We got there pretty fast. Yeah,

I remember sun on water the next fucking day. My car, my cars must have been cramping, like the whole, the whole time I car I could not walk, man, I've, 

oh yeah. 

Me. You 

could walk cars that 

bad. I was singing holy cramping. Fuck. We 

must have been hooking and I just couldn't feel a thing. How, how did your car feel the next day?

Yeah. Oh no, it wasn't as bad as him, obviously.

Oh, fuck. So, so yeah, run us through what happened on the boat. Like blood touray. What? What did you do? 

Yeah, so we didn't have a [00:42:00] touray on the boat. That's actually another funny story. Couple weeks before the trip. I actually went to buy a Touray. I don't know why. I've never had one in my life. Um, but it was 80 bucks and I was like, oh, a leg rope will be, or a piece of rope can interject you.

There's a key detail. You're an EMT, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah, I was. So yeah, dodgy was an emergency response technician. Like basically the ambos before the ambos get there up in the mines. Yeah. So dudes get stuck in shoots or have heart attacks or car rollovers, like gnarly shit happens in the mining industry.

Dodds, he's a first responder. Yeah, right. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

No shark 

attacks. Nah. Yeah, no fucking hell. So who took control on the boat? What happened? 

Well, what would you say, bro? It, yeah. Yeah. It's sort of a team effort, I'd say. Yeah, 

for sure. Mm-hmm. I think like for me then it was just like a massive thi of relief.

Yeah. Like a. Even though like, you know, you laid down and your leg was a mess. I think we both just said, fuck. Like, thank God that's over. Like we, we kind of, at least we've made it [00:43:00] outta this now 

step one's complete. Yeah. Get to the boat. Worst of it's over, hopefully. Yeah. 

And then I remember just like saying to Diana, you just chill.

Just chill. Like we, we all right now, like we're, we're on the deck and just slow your heart down and we'll fucking tourn kay this up. And you'll be all right. Like, you've made it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, we've, we've made it. So, um, yeah, it was just a matter of, um, I didn't, I've never done a tourniquet.

I didn't know what I was doing. I just, I had a bit of like, you know, ev every boat has a bit of rope on it. I just got like a, you know, would've been a 10 or 12 mil rope, just half hitched, cranked as tight as I could around the lower, like upper calf, lower knee. And then I was kind of like, oh fuck. I dunno if that's doing much, maybe I'll get one higher as well.

And then. I just got my weight belt and just cranked that around and, and, um, poked a hole with my, my spear 

for listeners. Uh, the, the scarring on dossey's legs about halfway up his shin for reference. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty high. You [00:44:00] got some on the heel as well? Yeah. Fuck that. Gnarly fucking hell. So, yeah, you've, you've made the right call really.

Instincts. Instincts kicked in and you to Yeah. It's just survival mode. Yeah. You could use anything on a boat really. Rope like your spear gun rubber. Actually, I, I cut off the, '

cause I had a reel on my spear gun. Yeah. I cut off some line of that. Oh. The, to begin with. And it was that thin. I thought I was gonna amputate his leg on the boat there and then

I got some rope instead. This thing was like wire. 

Could you feel it dossie? Like once you'd looked at your wounds, could you feel the Yeah, 

it was like that throbbing sort of like, yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty painful. Yeah. Yeah. But adrenaline 

was crazy. So you torn aade, you obviously had to pull, anchor, and then cut anchor.

Oh, you just cut it? Yeah. I'm pretty sure I pass you my knife. I was like, cut that. Fucking have time for that. You know what, that'd actually be be cool for the pool room. Have [00:45:00] you got the mark? 

Uh, we probably still, do you know if there's any helmet 

out there that would be willing to dive on that spot?

We'll get the fucking mark, mark. Pick up his gun while you're at it. You go get Dottie's 

gun and yank the down there. Tell you what, 

I will fucking turn that anchor in a trophy for these boys. Yeah, that'd be awesome. We would 

sell. We've still got the mark. I've definitely got the 

mark on Navi. Yeah. Alright, so yeah, you've, you've, you've, it's got lots 

of fish on it too, right?

Bit of an incentive. Uh, you got dossie on the boat, you've torn ACA in now what? You're heading back to shore. Yeah. Cut the pretty far from the nearest boat ramp to a. Launch at a ramp was six k from the beach. Yeah, just a beach launch. Okay. 

Yeah. There's no ramp. Yeah, there's just, yeah. Straight pushing off the beach.

Right? Um, yeah, you shot in, well that, that was kind of the other kind of difficult part 'cause where were we, obviously no reception. So I'm calling like I'm using my phone to do that emergency call and then I'd, I'd get through, and I dunno if they're all like this, so I never really called triple zero, but [00:46:00] requesting ambos.

Somehow I was in Sydney and then they'd put you through to Perth and then you'd go through to like explain where you are. But then I'd like drop out, but then I'd like start the whole process again. So I'd probably call triple zero like three times and then had to like, yeah, I'm the fucking shark attack in Lehman.

Like, yeah. Trying to, what? What's your marker? Like, where are you? And I was like, well, you know, we're about four and a half, four and a half, 5K north of Lehman. You know, there's a little gravel track off Indian Ocean Drive next to the 80 sign, or like. Something like that. So yeah, it was pretty difficult trying to actually, like you 

didn't really even know where you were to tell 'em where to meet you.

Hey, not really. Yeah, not really. There's probably a lesson 

there. We, yeah, we had an e Perb. Yeah. Had had all the safety gear, like Yeah. Prob probably, I mean, too panic 

to think about it. 

Well, you at this point I just steaming. I was, I was just went full flo, like straight into, straight into as shore. Yeah.

And if you're getting phone reception like through there, then you're probably just thinking it's gonna happen anyway. 

Yeah. Yeah. The thing, well I like, I, I knew that I had like contacted him. Yeah. And I had said, you know, shark [00:47:00] tack, Lehman ambo now kind of thing. Yeah. Hurry up. Simple. So like, I think like the mess, somewhere along the line, the message had got through and then like, they were actually trying to call me back and I was trying to call them and, but I, I just, by the end of it, I just put my phone away and we just got into shore and then there was actually like a couple that were just like, well I did they have a dog man Might have been walking a dog or something on the beach there.

Yeah. They had a young kid there. Yeah. Poor child at their son. And just it's funny story with that bloke 

kind of got him on the shoulder and, um, yeah, like, like yeah, he, they helped us lift him out the boat and put him under a tree and then I ended up speaking to the ambo or to the triple zero again, and I was like, I'll wait on the road and flag him down.

So pretty much just did that and I 

run to the road, it was like a k and a half to the road. It was running back and forth like, but then I was, I bit 

worried about Dodds, so sometimes I'd run back and be like, you still with me? And they'd be like, yeah, yeah, I'm still with us. Then 

run back to the road. And I vaguely remember when you were chatting to White and Buddha about, um, [00:48:00] you know how all the, the beaches that are in the middle of nowhere now have like a hellie pickup point where you can quote a number.

Yeah, yeah. Did you, am I wrong in saying that? You have had one of them there. There is one there. Yeah. Yeah. There was 

one, one on the entrance of the track. On the entrance off. Yeah. Off the road like this. Yeah. That's a big, I can't actually remember what number those big 

green signs, people that are listening again, um, that take note of, of them's a Yeah.

Yeah. Down shit does hit the fan. Whether it's a fucking shark attack or your mate surfing the sho and breaks his neck or a blue ring octopus or someone has a heart attack, like makes it a lot shit can go wrong. Yeah. For them to find you. Yeah. The reason I gave fucking use it once I gave him that 

they, they were like, yep, we're on our way.

Like we knew we were so yeah. They was able just to kind of hang with you under the tree for a bit till they came. Wow. What a 

fucking story. Yeah. So, um, the ambo gets there. How long between the ambo getting there? It took while like, it was like 

45 to an hour. I reckon it was long ago. Yeah. 

It felt, I I actually reckon it was [00:49:00] probably closer to an hour or like over an hour.

Wow. Yeah, it was actually, it felt like, it felt like a fucking long time. And 

how, how are you going in that, those moments dossie were you had panic set in or like, uh, what do they call it? You've gone shock, had shock set in. Nah, I 

was. Just trying to stay as calm as possible. I was like, I'm gonna elevate this leg and just control my breathing and just keep the heart rate down if I'm, I was pissing out blood, I had it wrapped in a towel and the tourniquet, but it was just soaking through the towel into the sand and I was like, alright, I just need to calm things down and just like minimize the blood loss.

Um, so I was just, yeah, elevating, chilling under this tree on the beach and Brody's running back and forth like a headless chook. And then I got this young, like 6-year-old kid like standing over me. Oh. And he's like, what happened to you? And I'm just like, oh man, I got nibbled by a great, what? And he was like, ah.

And then he just wanders off. You're 

trying to be gentle with your words too. Yeah. Yeah. [00:50:00] He was. But it was nice. 

Yeah. It was a good relaxing little interaction with him. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I was just taking it easy. Did you think you were gonna lose your leg at any 

point? 

I did. Yeah. Yeah. I was, that was my main concern.

I like. Up until the surgery later that day or the next morning, I was pretty concerned that they were gonna have to amputate it or something bad was gonna happen like that. Yeah. Or you 

might not get your ability to walk back. Yeah. Achilles might be severed. Like, and 

you know what they say? Like they can't give you a definitive answer.

You're asking the question like, oh, am I gonna lose my leg? And they're like, we don't know until your hopes up, you've gone into surgery. So it was sort of like, wasn't until after the surgery that I sort of relaxed and I was like, okay, I'm not, other shit you gotta think 

about too is like, look what's just happened to Della with his arm.

You know, he's, he's had his arm operated on and it got infected. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And fuck, they can't be a clean, that was their, one 

of their main concerns. 'cause the amount of bacteria in these slight sharks like mouth is just insane. Like Yeah. When you 

see the photos of them coming at a shark cage with those high res cameras and they got all [00:51:00] fucking parasites, Chi gums, well they be eaten rotten 

sea lions and like whales, whales.

And so I was very lucky I didn't get any infections. How, 

how many stitches and, and. Run us through the recovery. 

Um, yeah, so the initial, the, the first surgery, they said it was over 200 stitches to stitch it all up. Um, and there's a bit of a story around the first surgery. It was a bit of a, a bo job. Um, I don't wanna throw anyone under the bus, but yeah, they pretty much just sewed me up and said, yeah, you're all good to go.

No, there's no, no internal damage whatsoever. And I was like, this is a miracle. My whole family's like, my whole family's like, oh my God, he is touched by God. He is, this is a miracle. Like nothing's no issues. And then obviously I started to recover and we're talking about it on the way here. Like, I was rolling my ankle every like five minutes when I was walking.

I like, couldn't feel the front of my foot. And the So you got nerve damage and my shin, yeah. Nerve damage. Well, yeah. There was one nerve that had been cut in two spots and then there was three tendons [00:52:00] that had been completely severed as well. So they pretty much missed all that. And then just slowed you back up.

Surgeon was about ready to clock off for it. Was it a weekend? I dunno was, yeah, it was a Wednesday night. I think it was a late one or it was a Wednesday? No, Thursday morning. The surgery was, 

how'd you actually get there? 

Royal Flying Doctor. 

Wow. So they came, did they land on the beach and everything? 

Nah, so they've got a little airstrip at Lehman.

Okay. Um, lucky enough 

was a plane or a helicopter 

That was a plane in that instance? Yeah, there was a guy having a heart attack who'd just been picked up in Carnarvon and they were driving him to, or flying him to Perth. And then he, they were literally over us as they got the call and they had to just backtrack a little bit, pick me up and then continue on.

So it was pretty lucky 

he had a little rendezvous with the dude in the. 

Yeah, I was having a yarn with him. I was like, and he was pretty much green. I was like, oh, he's not in a good way. But yeah. What you in here for? Whatcha doing here? 

T talking. Well, I just got attacked by a great white shark mate. So story 

what, what, since then, how's, how's it [00:53:00] affected both you?

I mean, it's pretty traumatic story, like in terms of you obviously, if you wanna talk about it too. Of course. Hell man. In terms of like going on the adrenaline junkies. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's obviously taken a bit of love out of it for you or what, what, what's happened since? 

Yeah, I mean I haven't been diving since.

Um, so I guess that's affected me and I used to dive all the time, loved it. I'm not opposed to going back out there, but definitely feels pretty sketchy around where we live, Perth sort of area. Um, and then, yeah, definitely some PTSD there and like, but it manifests in like different ways. And mate, good on you for 

actually like coming out and saying that, dude, I, I respect the hell out of that.

Oh, of course you've actually been able to. That's a, that's a real thing. Yeah, a hundred percent. 

And um, it's hard to pinpoint how it affects your life, but it definitely affects it in little ways here and there. So, yeah. But what can you do? Like, shit happens. So you just gotta keep charging. Yeah, 

yeah. Just keep going on.

Yeah. Not like you guys have, uh, stopped using the ocean as well. You guys are [00:54:00] keen fish shows. We were frothing that day. We went diving, we pulled up stumps. We got a little snapper on the, on the rod and reel then too. Yeah, it's the best. Yeah. We love it. 

Yeah. Yeah. I think we both love the ocean. We always have.

So we'll always be a part of our life. Like, I've certainly don't wanna give up being on the ocean or in the ocean, you know, still surfing, haven't prob, haven't dived since, but, um, almost got a 

deeper connection with the ocean now. That sort of perspective been with Yeah. Like 

healthy perspective. Yeah. I mean, we wish didn't happen.

We've gotta respect for the ocean, you know, it's 

just a matter of like. You're naive to think that it might not happen to you, but it fucking can happen to you. Yeah. Well they say 

that you, you're more likely to get hit by a truck on the way to work than you are to get attacked by a great wire when you enter the ocean.

Yeah. But you know that, that all comes down to factors too. It depends where you cross. It depends 

where you're crossing the road and where you Yeah. Or where you dive. Big steel fell. Yeah. How deep are, are, yeah, that's it. Yeah. 

Yeah. You spend enough time in the water, you'll come across them like they're always there.

I've seen 

a tiger like [00:55:00] that. That was, you know, again, per we just spoke about perspective. I saw a tiger shark, shark up at nlu. We were diving in Nlu, NLU Bay and uh, I'd actually just looked underneath this little rogue bombing out in the middle of nowhere, like perfect prey, prey sort of territory. I looked under there and there's this massive red cray, and you don't actually find red Crays too often.

Um. Nali, you sort of see the more pa orate. Yeah. Painted craze up there. 

Yeah. 

I've seen this red and it was massive. It was fucking huge. So I've dropped my gun. I needed two hands to grab it, and I've stuck it under this ledge. I had nowhere to go. Like, I'm not the best at grabbing craze either, but this thing had nowhere to go.

So grabbed it, got it. By sort of the antennas, and I've left my gun on the bottom, and I went up to the tinny, which was just above my head. And I've come up, used that momentum as I'm coming up, knew that the esky was there all in one movement, flipped the lid of the esky open, thrown the cray in there. And as I've come down and broke the surface, you know, when you jump in, in the [00:56:00] bubble, that's, that's sort of like the, the first one to two seconds of you sort of getting comfortable that as it starts to wear off, that fear, that feeling of um, sort of, I'll call it fear or nervousness, is when I feel like it's when that bubble trail clears from your face.

Yeah. So as those bubbles have cleared from my mask. I've looked down and there's no shit like a four and a half meter tiger shark. Oh, you are kidding. Yeah. Underneath me. And it's the first I'd seen heaps of bronzy and heaps of dusk up there. I think I'd even seen a bull shark diving around the corner from Red Bluff as well.

But it's super clear water. 

Yeah. 

And this shark, I, I did panic for about five seconds. I was like, fuck my gun's on the bottom. So it was me the shark and my gun underneath the shark gun. Still there. 

I'm 

in. You 

know what I think, I think I 

actually pulled the fucking knife out the sheath. I was like, come on, gun.

Let's go. Like, what? What am I thinking I'm gonna do with fucking mask? 

This shark had a massive coia on it too. So I've shout out to, I was with [00:57:00] Tom forward, uh, Charlie King. Shout out to these boys. 'cause they're donga legends. I love them. Uh, yeah, Tom forward, Charlie King and Paul Nunn and, uh, this shark ha it knew I was there and it's done a really tight arc around my gun and I swear to God as it straightened up, it's just done a little roll like this looked up at me.

Look down and just nicked off again. So, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a pretty cool, dare you. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty cool experience though to, to be in the water with a shark. Obviously your experience though, is a bit different when it's attacking you, it's a different story. So, 

yeah. 

Fuck LA that's, you've, 

you've lived through something that not many people have ever come out the other side of.

So like you said, the, I think you said something pretty wise, like you've got a deeper connection with the ocean and it's like Yeah. A hundred percent. Like it's, mate, it is an unbelievable story. Yeah. Like, and I purposefully didn't ask Rothi about it and I didn't want to talk to you guys about it before we started this podcast.

They wanted to come in fresh. Yeah. I sent [00:58:00] 

l um, gr Reapers. Yeah. Yeah, because that was early grin Reapers days. I didn't, you, you guys are like the first, I think they're over 600 episodes or something now that you guys are in the first a hundred. And I think it was only like. Two, three weeks after it actually happened that you went in there for a chat.

Yeah, it was pretty fresh. Still processing it. So yeah, I sent it to Le and he is like, nah, I'll go in fresh for that one. Yeah, we try to do a bit of research on all our guests. So like a lot of fishermen obviously aren't, um, they're not out in the public eye a lot. They're pretty secretive sort of types of people.

But yeah, this one we could obviously do research and know the story or come in even, even for, for me, I've, I've, for the first time, yeah, like there's been details that I've heard today where I'm like, literally, I could've pulled 

my sleeves up. Goose. Well, you, you put yourself in those positions, right?

Even like the swim back to the boat after something like that happens, mate, if I've got a 30 meter swim back to the boat after spearing a fish and I haven't seen a shark, I'm shitting myself after like sometimes thinking, yeah, oh, this is uncomfortable. Like just swimming through this patch of water.

Well, that's, I cannot [00:59:00] imagine the fear. Going through you after like watching your mate get launched outta the water and Oh man. Parts of whole story. 

You watched me in the water the other day when we were out at the fads with that hammerhead. Yeah. We had a big, like pretty, it was sick seeing a hammerhead in the water, but I was out in the fad shoot at the fads with l We had a wicked session and we, we were catching a heap of dollies and I jumped in the water with my camera housing to try and get some good shots.

I think you guys may have seen those photos, but there was a big hammerhead cruising around and every five seconds or so, I did like a full 360 like thing. You got it, man. Same thing. You got it. Build up in a ball just to look around. I, and like you said, man, swim back to the boat when you've got a fish.

That's scary enough. It's all, yeah. Yeah. You're 

hanging it out the water trying to get, oh man. Yeah. And 

even, and even like the little details where you said that your masks were off. Because I can imagine all you wanna do is look down and just be like, is what, where is it? What's, what's underneath me? So like those moments where you're putting yourself in your, like shoes in that story just going fuck your mask down around your neck and you just [01:00:00] can't.

So it's literally a gun it to the boat. Shit shut across your fingers. The relates 

to get to the boat is just like best feeling ever next level. Like yeah, it was the best feeling ever. Like it was just that feeling of, well, for me, like that we'd just, we'd, we'd survived. We'd made it. Like that was the worst of it.

Done. Yeah. Obviously we still had to save your leg, but mm-hmm. 

I wanna, I wanna ask because we won't, we won't keep you too much longer, as much as I'd love to talk about this forever. Um, the, what are you feeling about, uh, feelings about like sharks now? Like in terms of whites, like we talk about tigers.

There's obviously some, a healthy population of, of sharks starting to get around now. How do, how do you feel about 'em? There's a lot more sharks around. Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. I love them. Like they're, I love every creature in the ocean. Like they're awesome to see out there. Um, I'm definitely not salty that one tried to like eat me.

Yeah. But you can't blame the thing. It's, you almost have extreme empathy 

for, [01:01:00] it's weird. You have empathy for a shark. Well, you, someone does. You wrong. 

You can understand why. 

Yeah. Imagine you are the shark. You're just hungry. You want like a decent little think seal. It's still what it does every day. His bastards 

rolled his legs up and cost him a meal.

Yeah. So yeah. You can't be salty with 'em. You're in their environment. It's a bit of a cliche, but it's true. Yeah. They're just from the horse's mouth too. It is pretty 

crazy to think how many attacks are happening now though. Yeah. Like, I don't know if it's just more documented or you just generally hear more of them, but it's, they're so much more frequent now.

Yeah. It's a very divisive topic. Yeah. 

How do you, like, what do you do? You let commercial fish always have a crack at him again or? Well, 

here's where I, here's where I think it's, it's wrong, right? Is we, you go to your fish and chip shop and you order fish and chips. You don't specify what fish you want.

You're getting New Zealand ha you're getting farmed fish [01:02:00] from New Zealand. So shark is delicious. A small bronze whale shark Yeah. Is delicious for fish and chips battered. Why aren't we letting commercial fishs go out and target a certain amount of sharks to service our own, you know, public in the fish and chip shops or stuff like that?

You know, I, I had this conversation 

with a fisheries bloke not long ago actually. Yeah. And I think a lot of the value is in the fin. Yeah. Okay. Particularly there's a lot of wastage. Yeah. Uh, and the thinning is frowned upon when it comes to particularly Australian with sustainability and all that sort of stuff.

So, um. I think that's a large, are we eating the fin? Well, what is it? Shark, fin soup. I don't know what they use it for, but that's where all the, the value in the shark is. And once they get over that about six foot delicacy size, there's too much mercury in them to eat them. Ah, yeah. So that's why the, there's a maximum size limit, I think down here is, it's about [01:03:00] six foot, so it's actually to protect the consumer.

It's not nine, I'm not a hundred percent sure if it's to protect the, the shark or the consumer, but I think once they get over that size, there's a bit too much mercury in them. No, I've actually 

got a mate, Michael Helsinger, he's a shark scientist. Our, our partners are, are best friends. Might reach out to him and see if we can have a yarn with him and get them.

But in terms of commercial, Fisher fishery, I don't think it's as lucrative for the fishermen as well. Yeah. So there's a lot more Be heavy on your gear too. There's a lot more that goes into it. I'm, I'm, I'm hearing what you say, and it's a, particularly even for the Northwest, that you go up there and you go fishing and how many fish, bottom fish you'll lose the.

Try and just get one red emperor or something like that. They're, they're a bit of an issue, but I think it's a larger, um, sort of issue than, than just go out there and catch 'em. Yeah. 

Yeah. It's, it's interesting. But I guess the, the thing that we can take from it is be fucking careful out there. Yeah. Like, the one thing I will say to people [01:04:00] is, you know, and I find it so funny that I talk about this, it's a sore point for me.

You, you gimme shit. 'cause you reckon, I don't, you know, fish with wire all that much, but the wire, the wire band and the, the whole thing around why they banned wire the shark fishing, right. I, I believe that it was for tourism. I think it affects tourism the most when people see that. You know, Perth is a place with beautiful beaches and whatnot, but why would you go swimming there when there's all these sharks?

And the whole thing was, oh, the fishermen are bringing the shark sharks in. Mm-hmm. Said it on a previous episode that we had with, with Tim Barlow. That is bullshit. The fishermen are there because the sharks are there. And if you look at sort of that stretch from Hillary's to Mul Lou, you guys are obviously down Fre way, but that's my local stretch stretcher, beach lex's, local str uh, stretcher beach.

There are tiger sharks there every day. And the reason that those tiger sharks are in there is if you put a drone up in the air that's actually flat ground. So from the beach all the way out to Seal Island, it only [01:05:00] gets to maybe four meters and there's stingrays everywhere. Yeah. They love, they eat stingrays where they come in, the stingrays feed on the squid, the sand white that are in there, all over those weed flats.

And the tiger sharks are just coming in there looking for a feed. And they are, some of the, the drone footage that you're seeing, I'm sure you guys have seen it, there's these big tiger sharks going up within a meter or two of people and then turn the other way, realizing they're not a food item and, and leaving.

I think that's probably, 

they're definitely there 

a reason, but yeah. Yeah, 

they probably need to learn like a bit more about 'em. I know we had like conversations with fisheries and stuff after the attack and they come to your house and like spoke to us and 'cause they were, determine what kind of shark and how it happened and what, did they get any DNA 

outta your leg or anything?

Nah, I sort of dropped the ball with that. The um, when I got to the hospital, they like cut um, my wetsuit clean off and then chucked in the bin and that had all the DNA of the shark. They needed the wedding mouth, they needed the wetsuit. So yeah. How did you 

go dealing with that? Like did they take your account firsthand?

Ben? Pretty avid fisherman. It's [01:06:00] pretty obvious what a great white is. 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. They 

obviously believed us. They pretty said straight away with the, the, the triangular teeth marks. Yeah. They, they knew it was a pointer. Yeah. They just didn't, they wanted to see how big and male or female, I think.

Yeah, 

yeah, 

yeah. Didn't get answer. No. So, 

nah. Yeah, they just, they couldn't get any details. Obviously from the, um, DNA, so yeah, it was pretty much just the, the width between the teeth. Yeah. That sort of determined that it was great white, um, 

because they were, they, China's like obviously they only, well from what I know, they only learn about this stuff when this stuff happens.

So Yeah. For them to kind of like diagnose it and break it all down and like learn how and why, why it's attack is all from attacks. Yep. So we were saying, you know, like what, like, you know, is there a resident white out there or something, you know that one that just controls that water And they were like, oh, not really.

'cause you know, one will be swimming to [01:07:00] South Africa one way. Yeah. At twice the speed.