- WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
- See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source
A Connecticut woman who didn't realize her husband was being attacked by a shark told him to 'stop fooling around' as he was dragged underwater.
Marcy Schweizer scolded husband, John Schweizer, for what she thought was a silly prank during their snorkeling trip in the Bahamas.
The couple, of Niantic, near New Haven, were on a cruise excursion celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary with their adult children, Tom and Joe, when their trip was dramatically interrupted.
'My wife was yelling at me to stop fooling around,' John, 69, told the Daily Mail.
His son, Tom, had seen the seven-foot reef shark's shadow swimming toward his father after he cannonballed into the water, but was unable to notify him before it sunk its teeth into his dad's left shin.
John said he immediately knew he had been bitten and began a frantic 40-foot swim back to the boat where the full horror of the attack became apparent.
'Nobody went in after that, and they pulled everybody out of the water very quickly,' he said. 'I immediately got back onto the ship, and it was bleeding all over the place.'
John Schweizer, 69, of Niantic, was bitten by a shark while snorkeling in the Bahamas on his 40th anniversary trip with his family
His wife, Marcy, thought he was 'fooling around' when he was bitten
The wound exposed John's bone but he refused to allow himself to think the worst even as the terrified passengers began binding him up with towels and tourniquets.
'I didn't have that negative thought. I knew I was bleeding,' he said. 'I didn't have any pain, for the most part.'
He credits adrenaline for keeping his pain on the wayside as they waited roughly 10 minutes for a speedboat to arrive that would take them to shore and then eventually back to the boat, which took an additional 10 minutes.
If they had stayed on the boat they were on, it would have doubled the amount of time to get him to a doctor.
The cruise ship's ER doctor meticulously cleaned John's wounds and put 26 stitches into his leg and four on his hand, which the father-of-two believes got caught on the shark's fin.
The process took the doctor, who has never seen a shark bite before, three hours.
'He was very good,' John recalled.
Luckily, the incident took place on the last day of the cruise and John was still able to make his onboard dinner reservation before the boat docked in Miami, where he was told to go to the hospital to make sure his bite wasn't infected.
They used a towel and a tourniquet to stop the bleeding as they waited for the speedboat to pick them up and take them back to the boat
John lost a lot of blood and the doctor spent three hours cleaning the wound
He received 26 stitches in his leg, which was meticulously cleaned by the boat's ER doctor
His son, Tom, had spotted the shark coming toward him before he could warn his father, who was briefly pulled under by the shark
Caribbean reef sharks can grow up to ten feet long but attacks on humans are extremely rare. John's son said he saw one of the creatures swimming towards his father but was too late to warn him
A day later, he was allowed to return home to Connecticut.
Upon return to the seaside town, he was cheered up by his friendly neighbors who greeted him dressed in shark costumes.
Schweizer is an avid fisherman and has often encountered tiger sharks near the Long Island Sound, but he has never been bitten before.
'They're usually sand sharks, and they're basically harmless,' he told the Daily Mail. 'For the most part, I'm comfortable around it. But these are big sharks [in the Bahamas], they're five to seven feet long.'
As for if he'll be brave enough to swim with the sharks again, his answer is 'no.'
'Absolutely not,' he said.
Caribbean reef sharks can grow up to 10 feet long. Attacks on humans by the species are rare with only four ever recorded, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Swimmers are advised to cannonball into waters containing reef sharks in a bid to scare them into the depths to avoid any interactions.