Yay for the dolphins!
'I knew it was circling me': Man attacked by shark was waiting to die, then dolphins saved his lifeMartin Richardson was swimming in the Red Sea in Egypt when he was attacked by a mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus). He was bitten approximately five times and was waiting to die when something unusual happened.
"There was no reason for the shark to stop," he said in "Saved from a Shark," a new show from National Geographic. "I had lost approximately 5 pints [2.8 liters] of blood. You only have 8 to 9 [pints, or 4.5 to 5 L] in your body. I was waiting for a feeding frenzy… I knew it was circling me… I turned away and looked at the mountains. I gave up."
At this moment, a group of dolphins appeared just behind Richardson, and the attack stopped. He was then pulled onto a boat that had been racing to get to him before the shark did and rushed to hospital, where needed more than 300 stitches. "I firmly believe the dolphins saved my life," he said.
Related: Great whites are dining on other sharks instead of seals, researchers discover in NatGeo show
Do whales and dolphins really protect humans from sharks? "Saved from a Shark" — part of NatGeo's SharkFest — looks closely at four cases where people were seemingly protected from the predators in the water."Being saved by another animal is certainly a very romantic notion," Tom Hird, marine biologist and shark conservationist, said in the program.
But it's not so clear that's what's actually going on in most cases.
Mike Heithaus, professor in the department of biological sciences at Florida International University, said it's unlikely dolphins were intentionally saving Richardson's life.
"The dolphins see a big cloud of blood, they know a shark is in the area." If they had young, they'd want to scare the shark away from the young. "They may not have been trying to save Martin," he said in the show...................
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/knew-circling-man-attacked-shark-070026268.html
