An 8-year-old boy’s afternoon of fishing with his father turned into a near-nightmare when a shark tried to grab his supper but ended up catching him instead.
Manni Alam captured a coral trout while spearfishing in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. He told his father he wanted to record a TikTok video of the fish. Consequently, the youngster returned to the sea, according to local news sources.
The father can be heard saying, “Manni, show me what you’ve got.”
The child sets his catch on the boat’s edge. As he was ready to speak, a shark lunged at him. The shark was identified by the local television station as a black-footed shark.
The shark snapped after missing the dead fish. Then it landed on Manni. A tooth penetrated the boy’s wetsuit and struck his chest before swimming away.
In a later TikTok video, while being interviewed by a local news reporter, Manni pulls down his collar to reveal what appears to be a scratch, but is actually a shark bite.
“It only hurt a little bit in the chest,” Manni remarked.
The reporter asked Manni if he wished for scarring, and he responded, “Yes.”
Despite his young age, Manni’s father told the reporter that his youngster is no stranger to sharks. He stated that encountering carnivores during ocean diving is “very common.”
“I am going back in,” stated Manni.
After the video went viral, a number of skeptics questioned the authenticity of the shark attack. But the father swears it’s real, as well as the chest damage.
»Australian 8-year-old spearfisherman shrugs off shark bite after catching fish«