In case you’re looking for another reason to start taking up boxing or kickboxing, you can now add “aid in rare instances of shark attack” to that list.
Sunday morning off the Pila’a Beach near Kilauea, Hawaii, Jeff Horton, 25, was visited by what he estimated to be a 12-foot tiger shark.
"I had my feet dangling, hanging below my surfboard, and I saw this thing coming up. And my instinct was 'whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,' and the thing comes right up. And I yanked my foot out right where it took the bite. Bit my board and missed my foot. And it flipped me and I rolled on top of it," Horton said.
That’s when the former boxer followed the recommended course of action when you’re face with a shark attack, unloading punches as hard and as fast as he could. One of the blows caught the shark in the eye, which prompted the predator to retreat, allowing Horton to make it to safety.
"After that, all the waves seemed small to me. I didn't care if they crashed on me or what. I just wanted to make it in," Horton said.
With a survival tale to tell for the rest of his life, and the yellow board he was using sporting a semi-circle imprint of the creature’s jaws ready to be hung on his wall, Horton, who has surfed since he was 14, said that the traumatic event won’t deter him from returning to the water.
