Man attacked by shark – goes to the pub afterwards

A New Zealand man apparently fought off a shark, stitched his own wounds back on the beach and stopped by at the pub on his way to hospital.

James Grant, a junior doctor, was spear fishing off New Zealand’s South Island when the attack happened according to Australian Associated Press.

In murky water Grant suddenly felt a pull on his leg which he assumed was one of his friends playing a trick on him.

When he turned round however he saw he had been bitten by a shark, thought to have been a type of sevengill or “cow” shark.

He told Radio New Zealand that in the water he couldn’t tell how big the shark was but that it roughly had a 20cm jaw span.

Not panicking he stabbed at the shark with his knife which he already had in his hand.

“I am not sure how effective it was. I guess it let go so something must have happened, put a few nicks in it,” he told the radio station.

When he made it ashore he saw he had five centimetre long lacerations on his leg which could have been much worse if not for the thickness of his wetsuit. He gave himself some stitches using a first aid kit in his car and then he and his friends stopped by at Colac Bay Tavern where he was given a bandage.

The pub’s owner, Warren Bevin, poured the young man a beer and said his friends seemed quite amused by the incident.

“We gave him a pint of beer and his mates were kicking around, laughing,” the landlord told New Zealand’s Channel 3.

“Then we brought out the big first-aid kit and got a little bandage out. There were a couple of good holes on both sides of his leg.”

The bites were properly dressed at Invercargill Hospital.

Although it is not known exactly which shark attacked Grant, the broadnosed sevengill can grow up to three metres long and there have been reports of non-fatal attacks around South Island in the past.