A shark attack survivor has described the terrifying moment he was mauled by the predator and revealed how he escaped.
Steve Bruemmer was swimming off the coast of central California last month when he was attacked by a shark.
The 62-year-old recalled how the weather was "beautiful", the sea was "so calm" and he was "gliding through the water" back to the shoreline when the mighty finned carnivore took him totally by surprise.
"I was about 150 yards from being done, near the beach, when, just wham...I was bit ferociously by a shark right across my thighs and abdomen," he said. "It grabbed me and pulled me up and then dove me down in the water."
Speaking from his hospital bed at the Natividad Medical Centre, Steve described how the shark released him after it dragged him underwater and revealed what he did next to ensure it didn't lunge for him again.
"Then of course it spit me out," he said. "I'm not a seal. It's looking for a seal. We're not their food."
The former teacher continued: "It was looking at me, right next to me. I thought it could bite me again so I pushed it with my hand and I kicked at it with my foot and it left."
After floating back to the water's surface, Steve started yelling for help. He was saved by married couple Aimee Johns and Paul Bandy - a nurse and a police officer - who rushed over on their paddleboards and called for an ambulance.
Another man, Heath Braddock, dove in with a surf board which the three of them used to carry Steve to safety. Branding the trio "heroes", Steve wondered: "How do you get in bloody water with maybe a shark circling beneath you to save a stranger? They're amazing."
Speaking to KSBW earlier this month, Braddock said: "We got my biggest board and the gentleman, Paul, helped me roll the victim on the board belly down and got him kind of centered and stable. We had him hold my food and we paddled him in."
Bandy also told the station: "He was screaming for help, you could tell the sound and the emotion in his voice that there was something definitely wrong and he was slapping the water. I wasn't sure if that was some sort of thing he was trying to get something away from him or just trying to draw attention to himself."
Steve was attended to by two ICU nurses and a doctor who had been relaxing on the Lovers Point Beach. They made makeshift tourniquets out of their T-shirts to stem the severe bleeding from his arms and legs.
An ambulance was already waiting at the beach thanks to the quick thinking of Steve's rescuers and he was at the hospital - some 28 miles away - 40 minutes after the call to emergency services was made.
He underwent further surgery two days later to "repair my thighs, so one day I'll be able to walk again". Fighting back tears, Steve thanked the entire staff at the Natividad - from the nurses, doctors, dieticians and physical therapists to the kitchen workers and cleaners who he praised as "encouraging and kind".
