McWilliams was about 30 yards from shore when he was knocked off his board and suddenly felt a searing pain in his right leg.
“At first I panicked,” he told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “I didn’t know if I lost half my leg or what.”
McWilliams said he believes the animal that attacked him was a 6- to 8-foot tiger shark — he saw the stripes — and he kicked it hard before attempting to swim to shore.
“That was the scariest part. I didn’t know where the shark was, and I didn’t know if he would come after me again,” he told the paper.
McWilliams did make it to shore where bystanders helped him get to an emergency room.
Although an experience like that might make some afraid of future ocean swims, McWilliams was mad the cuts kept him from boogie-boarding.
“I’m just mad that I can’t get back in the water for a couple days,” McWilliams told Hawaiian TV station KGMB.
Of course, McWilliams is almost used to being attacked by large creatures with big teeth after his bear encounter last year.
“The bear grabbed the back of my head and started pulling me and I was fighting back as best as I could,” he said. “It dropped me and stomped on me a little bit, and I was able to get back to the group and they scared it away.”
Oh, and three years ago, he was bitten by a rattlesnake while hiking in Utah.
Despite being a magnet for animal attacks, McWilliams holds no grudge: He just figures he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I’ve always loved animals and spent as much time with them as I could,” he told the BBC. “I don’t blame the shark, I don’t blame the bear, and I don’t blame the rattlesnake.”
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