Today in Possibly The Scariest Fucking Thing Ever: surfer Elinor Dempsey was riding waves at Morro Strand State Beach when a great white shark decided it was in the mood for something tougher than human flesh and took a 14-inch wide bite out of her board.
Dempsey, thankfully, escaped unharmed. And according to CBS News, she demonstrated extraordinary calm and logic in the moment: “Dempsey pushed the board toward the shark as she jumped off.” Fellow surfers helped her to retrieve her board, though I’m not sure how one repairs a shark bite the size of a watermelon.
“I might sell it to the highest bidder,” she cracked to the San Luis Obispo Tribute.
Researchers are examining the bite to determine the size of the shark. Shark researcher Ralph Collier explains that “the bite on Dempsey’s board likely only represents the upper portion of the jaw.”
“The bite might only be 30 percent of the actual jaw,” he tells the Tribune. “You could be looking at an animal 13 to maybe 15 feet.”
Holy moly. Pardon me while I hug the shoreline for the rest of my life.
Dempsey, however, is not a weenie like yours truly, and while she is understandably “shaken,” she plans to continue surfing. In fact, she claims that life threatening peril was not the worst part of her day.
“I didn’t get a wave,” she bemoaned. “That’s the worst part — I got no waves.”
Contact the author at rachel.vorona.cote@jezebel.com.
Video via YouTube.
