WARNING, GRAPHIC CONTENT: Eric Nerhus, from Eden, Australia, was swallowed whole and head-first by a 10-ft-long great white shark while diving for molluscs off the coast of New South Wales
A lucky dover has told how one minute he saw ‘daylight’ and then everything ‘went black’ when he was swallowed by great white shark.
Somehow Eric Nerhus, from Eden, Australia, survived being in the jaws of the sea monster as it tried to eat him alive.
He is one of the few people on Earth who can say that they’ve survived being in the jaws of a great white shark.
He was diving near the reefs at Cape Howard in New South Wales in January 2007 looking for abalone, a type of edible sea snail, when the beastly shark swam up to him.
The seasoned diver, who was 41 at the time, found himself inside the stomach of the 10ft-long shark as its piercing teeth sunk into his flesh.
The monstrous creature then tried to swallow him whole, crushing his head and chest, which were luckily protected by his heavy diving gear.
He told The Sun: “One minute it was daylight, the next second everything went black.
“Inside the jaws it was just dark, I couldn’t see anything because I was looking down the back of his throat. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
After the shark’s first bite, it tried taking a second bite out Eric’s windpipe before it began shaking him uncontrollably.
Eric said: “I started to get shaken horizontally with a really hard threshing motion. I thought ‘is this the end, is this what is like to die’.”
His fight-or-flight instinct luckily kicked in at this point, and he blindly groped around and found an eye socket which he managed to dig a thumb into.
The shark let go, but according to a shark expert, this didn’t spell the end of the attack.
Aidan Martin, a shark scientist, told The Sun that sharks often allow their bitten prey to get away so they bleed out and are easier to take on.
The shark quickly came back for round two with Eric.
Eric said: “The big round black eye was staring straight into my face with not one hint of fear of any boat, any human, or any other animal in the sea. It was the scariest sight I have ever seen.”
He managed to calm himself down and make a break for his boat, where he was luckily taken onboard by his son.
He was flown to Wollongong hospital by paramedics shortly after he escaped the life-threatening incident.
Eric said of the attack: “I am glad I am still around. Sometimes you get a break in life… I’m a working man that just wanted to survive very, very badly, at all costs.”
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