Woman who thought she would die during shark attack describes the horrifying moments before she was bitten
A woman who narrowly survived a shark attack has described the traumatic moment - and why she jumped right back into shark-infested waters just weeks later.
Free diver Anika Craney had been swimming in the Australian waters by the Queensland coast when a predator went for her.
Anika had been on a boat called Barefoot and was taking a new member out into the water with her when she had a sneaky suspicion something wasn't right.
Speaking to Channel 4, Anika said the first thing she noticed when she got into the water was how low the visibility was.
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"[It] was really murky, we barely saw a little fish beyond our arm's length," she said, prompting her to urge her companion to head back towards the boat.
However, the return trip almost cost Anika her life.
"I was looking at the sandy sea floor and I saw a shadow, just in my peripheral vision so I looked up and I saw this shadow emerge from the murky water and it became clear to me, it was a shark," she continued. "My first reason was not of fear, it was of curiosity, because we've been swimming with sharks a lot."
Yet Anika grew cautious of it as she noticed it was swimming directly towards her.
"Its behaviour was not comfortable to me," she added. "I looked the shark in the eye and I saw that it was looking straight at me."
In a bid to protect herself, she moved around and put her fins in front of her body, but it didn't help.
"Then I felt the impact. It hit me so fast, I didn't even quite realize what had happened," she said.
"I felt this pressure in my left leg and honestly I thought that it has just hit me with its head and so my instinctual reaction was to kick it off.
"It wasn't until I saw the blood pooling around me that I actually realized it had bitten me, so I grabbed my leg and I started screaming for help, not just because I was losing what seemed like a lot of blood but I also realized the shark might come back and bite me again and if it did, I might not survive this."
Gripped with 'so much fear' that 'everything became 'white and foggy,' Anika's survival instincts kicked in.
"I realized my life was in danger and if I wanted to survive this, I had to give it everything I had to get out of the water."
She swam 'as hard and fast' as she possibly could - all the while traumatised by the thought of the shark returning for another taste.
"That loud part of me thought, 'you're about to die,'" she said.
Fortunately, a woman on a paddle board was near enough and rescued Anika, but she says in that moment she felt like she just 'wanted to slip unto the water and go to sleep.'
Fortunately, she didn't and people on the beach came running to her aid, including a man who gave her leg a tourniquet until she was air lifted to hospital.
"I was screaming at these paramedics, 'I love you, you're amazing.' I felt like just really happy to be alive," she added.
It later transpired the shark bit the lower part of her left leg down to the bone, leaving behind a couple of teeth in her tibia all while severing an artery.
Anika spent eight days in hospital recovering - and after two months when it was healed, jumped right back into the water.
"I actually chose to swim with sharks and I'm glad that I did. It was a really wonderful way to make peace with this experience," she concluded.
Topics: Animals, Australia, Channel 4, Life, World News, Shark
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