Shark Attacks Man Who Survived Bear Mauling, Rattlesnake Bite

GRAND JUNCTION, CO — A Colorado man who last year survived a bear "crunching" on his head is, again, lucky to be alive after a close brush with wildlife. This time, however, a shark decided to take a bite out of him.

Dylan McWilliams, 20, of Grand Junction, was boogie boarding in the waters off Kauai on Thursday morning when a wave up to five feet in height knocked him off his board, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. He found himself floating in clear, deep water about 30 yards off Shipwreck beach in Poipu. Suddenly, he felt what the newspaper described as a "searing" pain in his right calf.

“At first I panicked,” McWilliams told the newspaper. “I didn’t know if I lost half my leg or what.”

He said he looked down and saw what looked like a 6- to 8-foot tiger shark, stripes and all.

He kicked the animal and began frantically swimming for his life toward the shore.

"The scariest part was swimming back," he told Hawaii News Now. "There was blood behind me. I didn't know where it was."

A woman on shore heard him screaming and came to help him. She called authorities, the newspaper said, as McWilliams' leg was bleeding on the beach. He ultimately needed seven stitches.

McWilliams told Hawaii News Now he's eager to get back in the water.

"I'm just mad that I can't get back in the water for a couple days," said McWilliams, who is backpacking the island for a two-week trip.

For McWilliams, this is the second major animal attack he's been in the receiving end of in the past year, and the third time something has bitten him.

The newspaper said he was bitten by a pygmy faded rattlesnake nearly four years ago while hiking in Moab, Utah.

In July 2017, McWilliams was working as a youth camp staffer at Glacier View Ranch in Colorado when he awoke to a "crunching sound,"with his head inside the mouth of a bear.

"The crunching noise, I guess, was the teeth scraping against the skull as it dug in," he said.

McWilliams punched and hit the animal as other staffers shouted and swatted at the bear.

He said at the time the bear dragged him up to 12 12 feet before he was able to free himself.

The bear was later put down.

Photo credit: Jamen Percy/Shutterstock.com