A Florida surfer is riding the wave of recovery after a not-so-friendly encounter with a shark that left his hand a bloody mess. CJ Lyles, 31, was surfing at New Smyrna Beach when he was bitten.
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Video footage captured blood streaming from his hand as beachgoers rushed to assist him. Instead of accepting their help, CJ opted to get into his car and drive himself home, allowing his girlfriend to take him to the hospital.
In his Instagram post, Lyles shared that the sharks he encountered were small and not significant enough to prompt him to paddle back to shore. However, the situation quickly changed. While paddling back out after riding a wave, he felt a three-foot shark latch onto his left hand.
“I felt sharp teeth and pressure,” Lyles wrote alongside the footage. .
“It scared the sh–t out of me, my first reaction was to pull away but it was hard with the shark thrashing around. It didn’t hold on long but it felt like awhile.”
After the shark released its grip on the surfer’s hand, he admitted he was too frightened to look down.
“I thought my fingers were gone,” Lyles admitted.
Videos captured right after the shocking attack show Lyles trying to rinse the wound with water, while blood pours into the receding tide.
The Florida Surfer’s Cool Demeanor Following the Shark Bite Makes Sense Given His Profession
However, Lyles’s cool demeanor following the shark bite makes sense given he’s a firefighter in Edgewater. Intense situations are what he deals with on the regular.
He stated that he could not bend his index fingers, suggesting that a simple stitch would not suffice to repair his hand.
After reaching the shore, the surfer swiftly headed to a nearby trauma center. Doctors performed loose stitches on his hand. The following day, he underwent surgery to repair a tendon.
While at the hospital, Lyles asked his girlfriend to bring him a change of clothes, as his shirt had become stained with blood following the accident. Unbeknownst to her, she picked a t-shirt that was ironically appropriate for the situation.
“I asked my girlfriend to grab me a shirt because I got blood all over my other one. Little did she know she grabbed the one shirt that says “shark bite” on it 😂,” he wrote on Instagram.
However, Lyles let his friends and family know of his hand’s status with an edit to his original post following surgery.
“I had 2 torn tendons in index finger and partially torn tendon in middle finger,” he wrote. “Nerve damage to both. Doctor said surgery went well. The long road to recovery awaits!”, he concluded.