An eight-year-old British boy was ravaged by three sharks while on holiday in the Bahamas in an attack that “was like a scene out of Jaws”.
Finley Downer, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, had to be dragged out of the water by his sister Lilly and rushed to hospital with deep cuts to his legs.
His family had been on a five-island tour package, which included guided swimming with iguanas, pigs and nurse sharks at Compass Cay.
His father Michael, 44, told The Sun: “My son could have been killed. It was like a scene out of Jaws.” He said that he and his family had seen sharks swimming among a crowd of people in a lagoon.
His children, Finley, 8, Lily, 9, and Emily, 12, decided to get in and play with the animals, unaware that the nurse sharks were being fed at the time.
Mr Downer continued: “Suddenly I heard a terrified scream and saw dozens circling Finley. There was so much blood. Bits of his leg were hanging off. He kept saying, ‘Dad I don’t want to die. Dad I don’t want to go to heaven.’”
The tour operator, Exuma Escapes, said that the family had gone off without a guide and visited a lagoon that was not on the tour.
Finley was dragged out of the water by his sister and taken to a nearby medical clinic in a golf buggy. His father then had to pay for a £2,000 flight to Nassau so his son could travel to a hospital to be operated on.
The eight-year-old is still using a wheelchair after the attack and will likely have lasting scars.
At full size, nurse sharks can reach 7.5 to 9.5ft and weigh 200-330 pounds (91-136kg). They are slow-moving bottom-dwellers and are usually harmless to humans.
However they do have very strong jaws filled with thousands of tiny teeth and will bite defensively if they are stepped on or bothered by divers.
