Fisherman survives shark attack with poke in the eye

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2007

NOUMEA (AFP) — A fisherman survived a shark attack in New Caledonia by poking the creature in the eye as it shook him "like a rag", he told a newspaper.

Jesse Jizdny, a 30-year-old policeman, said the tiger shark went for him three times last week while he was fishing with friends off the northwestern coast of the French South Pacific territory.

"I saw a big tiger (shark) coming with its jaws open. I saw all its teeth. He went for my torso and I thought, 'that's it, I'm done for'," Jizdny told the Nouvelles Caledoniennes newspaper from his hospital bed.

He hit the shark on its nose but it came back at him and caught his ankle. Then it charged a third time and grabbed a leg.

"It was shaking me like a rag. I bent round on him and put my hands on its...