A homeless man who had been camping illegally on a beachfront bluff gave a stranded baby shark a helping hand Sunday morning at a popular surfing spot in San Clemente, Calif.
The man, identified by the Orange County Register only as Kyle, took his shoes off, grabbed a plastic chair and trotted to the beached shark and used the chair in an attempt to push it back into the surf, as shown in video taken by Carson Grier, a bystander.
Eventually, Kyle grabbed the tail of the shark and pulled it into the water.
“He finally got it to swim away,” Grier told the Register, though the shark appeared to be struggling.
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Grier told the Register he had been checking out the surf as he does every morning when he noticed the homeless man attempt to rescue the baby shark he believed to be a mako shark around 4-feet long.
The homeless man had been pitching his tent in the same spot for about a month—right next to a sign that says no camping, Grier told the Register.
When Grier thanked the man for what he did, Kyle told him it wasn’t his first beach rescue, that he once removed a hook from the mouth of a large stingray. As he patted the stingray in attempt to prompt it to start moving, it began having babies. He helped them all get back into the ocean.
“I know this guy has a good head on his shoulders…Maybe this could be the one thing that can lift him up and give him the support he needs,” Grier told the Register regarding the homeless man’s positive moment caught on video. “I respect what he did as a human today…I think this guy does have a chance.”
