A surfer who was mauled by a great white shark off the coast of San Francisco has miraculously survived the attack.
The 35-year-old man was able to swim to shore at Gray Whale Cove beach where rescuers applied a tourniquet to his leg.
He was left needing hospital treatment after the beast sunk its teeth into his thigh, San Mateo fire department told local news station CBS5.
Luckily the shark, which only managed to bite once, was an estimated six to eight feet long suggesting it was probably young.
“It was only one bite and there were about 10 lacerations to the back of the right thigh,” Brian Ham, battalion chief of the fire department said.
But Ham warned that the creatures have been swimming close to the shore and often get within 100 and 200ft of the beach.
“Usually [the sharks are] within the surf zone, so they’re within 100ft to 200ft of the actual beach. It’s shallow but a shark can attack very close to the beach," he said.
Emergency services gave the surfer treatment on the shore before rushing him to the trauma unit at Zuckerberg San Francisco general hospital. He was released on Sunday.
It comes after marine ecologists last month discovered that great white sharks have increased in California over the past decade.
A whopping 266 adults are thought to populate the region's 'red triangle' - running from Monterey Bay to Bodega Bay.
Despite attacks by great white sharks often being deadly, the chances of a surfer being mauled by one are very low - one in 17million according to research published last year.
