Doctor fights off shark, stitches himself, then gets a beer | The Daily Caller

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A New Zealand doctor had to use a knife to fight off a shark before swimming to shore, stitching his wounds and rewarding himself with a beer at the local tavern, reported ABC News Tuesday.

The doctor, James Grant, 24, was spear fishing with friends off of South Island, New Zealand Saturday when he felt a tug on his leg.

Grant originally thought it was a friend playing a prank on him before looking down to discover a shark ripping into his leg.

“To be honest it was a bit of an odd reaction. It wasn’t really fear or anything, it was just like: ‘F**k it, I’ve got to try and get this thing off my leg,’” Grant told Radio New Zealand.

Grant told ABC News that he thought the shark was probably attracted to the fish he had just speared.

The flapping fish was still attached to his spear dagger when the shark bit into him. Grant quickly detached the fish with a knife and began fighting off the shark.

“I was just trying to knock that off, and that’s when all this started happening. So it was quite a convenient time actually; I had a knife in my hand so I gave it a good few jabs to try get it off,” said Grant.

Grant said he was unable to get a good look at the shark but by evaluating the wound in his leg thinks it to be the work of a sevengill shark.

Sevengill sharks can be up to ten feet long at full growth but are not known as man-eaters.

Luckily for Grant he was wearing a thick wetsuit.

“I got to have a little bit of a look at the wetsuit, saw there was a hole in it and I could see a bit of blood leaking out from it, but it wasn’t until I’d taken the wetsuit off from the shore that I saw all the lacerations,” he told Radio New Zealand.

Grant then proceeded to stitch his wounds with a first-aid kit he kept in his car.

“I think it must have been adrenaline at the time because it wasn’t too bad putting them in – but I wouldn’t usually do that,” he said.

After cleaning their fish, Grant and his friends walked over to the bar for some drinks.

“It was sort of unheard of to walk in the bar and ask for something to mop the blood up with [and] then have a beer,” bartender Warren Bevin told Radio New Zealand.

Grant’s injuries are healing well and he told ABC News that he intends to continue spear fishing.

“I’ll be back out in the water some time,” he said. “It’d be good going back out on a clear day. I don’t think going out in no visibility is such a good idea anymore.”

Tags: Attack, Beer, Doctor, Sharks