A surfer has survived being attacked by a great white shark in New Zealand by punching it.
Nick Minogue, who lives in Auckland, New Zealand, was surfing 300 metres off Pauanui Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula when the incident happened on Saturday morning.
Mr Minogue told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) about the attack, saying: “I felt the bang as the shark hit me, as it came up on my left-hand side and hit my forearm and elbow.”
The shark then clamped itself onto the front of his surfboard.
Mr Minogue said: “I’d heard they didn’t like being punched in the eye or the nose or the head. So I went to punch it in the eye. It was the most vulnerable and soft target I could reach."
He added that he yelled “f*** off” as loudly as he could.
His first punch missed but he managed to land his second punch, causing the shark’s eye to “roll up” a little.
As the shark swam off, its dorsal fin brushed him.
Mr Minogue quickly paddled to shore along with a German surfer, who had been 50 metres away from him at the time of the attack.
He told RNZ that he also felt a bump on his board as he made his way to shore.
Riley Elliott, a shark expert, said the bite marks on Mr Minogue’s surfboard and his description of the shark are consistent with a great white.
Mr Minogue was left with a cut on his arm and a few teeth-holes in his wetsuit, but otherwise emerged unscathed.
