Nightmare video shows shark latch onto swimmer's stomach and refuse to let go

Remarkable footage has emerged of a Florida man battling to remove a shark from his body after being bitten.

In the difficult-to-watch clip, which was shot off the coast of Marathon, Florida, a snorkel-clad Ervin Maccarty is seen being pulled back into a fishing boat by friends with a small nurse shark latched onto his lower stomach.

"I was taking lunch break on boat while another six people were in the water retrieving lobsters," Maccarty explained to the Mirror. "One of them came up for air and says he shot a grouper with a spear gun and that the grouper was stuck in the hole."

"I am good at getting groupers out of holes so the captain of the boat asked me to go in and get the grouper. I jumped in and went straight to the hole in about ten feet water," he continued. "As soon as I get down there the shark came out of another hole and bit me. I struggled getting back to the boat. It knocked the breath out of me so I had to get up for air but I felt the shark biting and trying to tear me open."

In the video, after Maccarty's friends successfully drag him back onto the small vessel, they urge him to lay down so they can try and cut the shark off of him.

"He didn’t get your penis, did he?" one of his friends jokes as another approaches him with a knife to try and remove the animal.

After stabbing the shark near its mouth, the group is able to successfully free Maccarty from its grip.

"Poor little fellow," one of his friends says, offering sympathy for the creature.

After surveying Maccarty's injuries, another friend jokes, "That ain't so bad, that's just a hickey!"

Only in Florida.

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