Surf
This is the shocking moment a shark leaped out of the water and bit off part of a man’s foot as he parasailed in the Red Sea.
The footage which was shot on Friday, shows the tandem parasailer, a 37-year-old Jordanian man, hovering above the water in Aqaba when the shark suddenly emerges and bites him on the leg.
The man lost part of the back of his foot in the attack which also severed tendons, tore muscles, and broke several bones.
He was taken to the Prince Hashem Military Hospital, in the port city, where he had an operation on his right foot. His condition was described as stable. Mohammad Qatawneh from the Aqaba International Dive Centre told local media that although shocking, attacks by sharks in the Gulf of Aqaba are rare.
‘The shark attack garnered a lot of media attention. Truthfully, it scared a lot of people, but this is something that can take place anywhere. In Karak, for example, there are snakes and scorpions, but in the end, they’re not dangerous enough to scare people away. I’ve been diving for 20 years and this is the first time I’ve heard of a shark attack.’
– Mohammad Qatawneh
Nayef Al Bakhit of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority said an investigation into the incident has been launched.
Several other people have been attacked in the Red Sea by sharks within the past year, although those incidents were further south, off the Egyptian coast.
In October 2020, a 12-year-old Ukrainian boy and an Egyptian tour guide were attacked by a shark at the Ras Mohammed national park in Sharm El-Sheikh. The boy lost an arm while the guide had a leg amputated when they were savaged by an Oceanic Whitetip shark.
Two months later a 42-year-old German woman was bitten by a whitetip shark near Marsa Alam in Egypt.
