Briton Martin Richardson was enjoying a vacation on the Red Sea. During one of his swims he came face to face with a mako shark – one of the most dangerous. The predator sank its teeth into his torso and dragged Martin to the bottom. At one point it loosened its grip, and the man was able to surface. But the shark had no intention of letting its victim go, and grabbed Martin again.
The man admits that he was already saying goodbye to life and cast a final glance at the sky, understanding that he was doomed.
«I was truly waiting for death and realized that I would be eaten. The shark kept circling around me. I simply turned away from it and looked at the mountains. I gave up…», Richardson recalls.
But then something incredible happened. At that very moment a noisy pod of dolphins appeared behind him. They distracted the shark from its bloody feast. The ferocious predator was thrown into confusion, and Martin took advantage of this. He swam away from the site of the attack, and at that moment a boat with rescuers arrived just in time.
Martin was hospitalized; he had lost almost three liters of blood and was given more than 300 stitches. The scars from the five bites of the mako shark will long remind him of the tragedy. And also of his rescuers.
«I firmly believe that it was the dolphins that saved my life. If it had not been for them, I would have been eaten».
Although there were also scientific skeptics who believe that with such loud behavior the dolphins were driving the shark away from themselves, not from the man.
«When dolphins see a large cloud of blood in the water, they know that there is a shark nearby. They may deliberately make noise to frighten the shark. But if, for example, the dolphins had had calves with them, they would have gone on the attack without a doubt», – says Mike Heithaus, a professor in the department of biological sciences at Florida International University.
By the way, there really are a great many cases in which pods of dolphins entered into combat with sharks and came out victorious. Although the expert admits that there have been many cases in which dolphins and whales protected people.
Made of stones and trash: how people live on the most cramped island in the world
