While sharks take over the TV for Discovery Channel's Shark Week, a man had a terrifying close encounter with sharks after his boat capsized in Australia, leaving him floating in the waters for over 24 hours.
A fisherman, whoho was completely naked, was rescued from shark-infested waters off the southwest Australian coast on Thursday. The man, along with two others was from a boat the capsized more than 24 hours before he was rescued. When the three men didn't return after setting out on a fishing trip from Leeman, a search began.
The rescued 49-year-old man was first spotted by a Channel 7 news helicopter on Thursday morning. Besides the fact that there was a naked man in the water, the reporters were on alert as a hammerhead shark was circling the man.
"When we first spotted him, one of the scariest things was there was a massive hammerhead shark not 20 meters away from him, just slowly circling around him," Grant Taylor, a Channel 7 reporter who was in the chopper, said during a live coverage of the man's rescue.
The reporters on board the news helicopter felt helpless until rescue crews arrived.
"He's stark naked ... just struggling to swim and float on his back and try and keep his head out of the water," Taylor said. "He keeps waving at our chopper trying to get us to come down and help him but there's nothing we can actually do."
Eventually five aircrafts and five boats arrived on the scene, but the man, exhausted from being in the water for so long, didn't realize that rescue was nearby right away.
"He just keeps putting his hands together praying, but he doesn't realize there's a boat just right behind him as we speak right now. Come on mate, just turn around and have a look, you're saved. He's yelling 'help'," Taylor said.
The man was finally picked up by one of the search and rescue boats. He was flown to a hospital in Perth to be treated for hypothermia.
Another 23-year-old man was rescued the same day, but he did not survive. A third man is still missing. The survivor is said to be the uncle of the two other men. The men are from Perth and were vacationing in Leeman.
There is no word on how the boat capsized or why the man was naked.
