MIAMI (WSVN) - Two fishermen are speaking out about the tense moments when they came to the rescue of a diver who, officials said, suffered injuries from a possible shark strike off Key Biscayne.
Cellphone video captured the victim, seen covered in blood, as he lay on the good Samaritans’ boat, Saturday morning.
“I’ve been fishing for 10-plus years out here, and I’ve never, ever seen anything like that,” said Kayle Evans.
Evans said the chaotic turn of events first began as a normal day of fishing about a mile off shore.
All of a sudden, the fishermen said, they were flagged down by a group of divers.
Evans said one of them appeared to be seriously wounded.
“He put his arm up like this, and you just saw blood all over, and we were like, ‘OK, got to go,” he said.
The fishermen then pulled the possible shark attack victim onto their boat, where they got a closer look at the severity of the injuries.
“Each finger cut wide open, big cut right here,” said Evans. “He had a hole about that big in his arm, and you could see the triangular kind of shark teeth.”
Once on board, the crew began stabilizing the victim until they got to shore.
“We had to bandage his hand. His whole left arm, it looked like his elbow, from the shoulder down to the hand, was torn up by definite shark bites,” said another fisherman.
When they finally made it back to land, near Bill Baggs State Park, first responders were there waiting. They loaded the bleeding victim onto the back of an ambulance and rushed him to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s emergency room as a trauma alert.
As of Sunday night, the diver’s condition is unknown.
Saturday’s incident was far from the only dangerous dive in the Sunshine State this weekend. Officials said three more people were bitten in two separate shark attacks in New Smyrna Beach, an area known by many as the shark bite capital of the world.
Fortunately, those injuries were minor.
As for the diver near Key Biscayne, the fishermen who came to his aid said they’re thankful they were at right place, at the right time.
“We’re lucky we had the nurses. Thank God everything worked out,” said Evans. “Hopefully he’s doing good.”
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