Surfer recounts terrifying memories and desperate struggle during shark attack: 'It was like being hit by a freight train'

Yahoo

12-03-2025

After surviving a shark attack in 2011, Dave Pearson began reaching out to others who'd experienced the same, and a personal journey of healing and helping turned into the first animal attack support group in the world: Bite Club.
Pearson's account of his attack and the aftermath is both terrifying and heartwarming. It took him 10 minutes to get out of the water along the New South Wales Mid North Coast, during which time he lost 40% of his blood. As he, friends, and fellow surfers endured a long wait for emergency medical services, Pearson encouraged everyone else that they had done all they could to save him. He was also impressed with their actions.
"I said to the guys: 'If I don't make it, you've tried your best and don't worry about it. … It's not a bad night to die anyway,'" Pearson told Sarah Kanowski in a January interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Conversations, recalling the sunset that evening.He had caught a few waves and was in the rip getting set for another when a bull shark came out of nowhere, chomping down on his arm and board. Luckily, his head was facing the other direction; its snout smacked him in the right temple."I just got hit by something," Pearson recounted. "And I remember saying that night it was like being hit by a freight train. … Next thing I noticed, I was under the water. There was bubbles everywhere. There was something big under there with me, but I couldn't make it out."His forearm muscle as well as thumb and wrist tendons were gone. He said he was stunned and dumbfounded. While he worked to get to the shore, wave after wave crashed down on his head, and he thought he was going to die.The pain, however, didn't arrive for about 15 minutes. His and his friends' first aid training kicked in. They called for an ambulance and helicopter.
That night, a doctor wanted to amputate his arm, but Pearson protested, and it didn't come to that. He was back in the water four days after being released from the hospital, and the first anniversary of the event was memorable, to say the least.
Pearson wanted to return to the spot where he was attacked, and just after he paddled out, a bull shark appeared, flashing its head and tail above the surface of the water. There was also a shark-shaped cloud low in the sky at sunset.
"The beauty of the celebration afterward is everybody else starts telling you what was happening to them on that day and what they heard and how they felt," Pearson said to Kanowski. "The most healing part of it is everybody else being able to let go of their situation as well."
In between those highlights, however, he struggled. Pearson remembers the day "it all fell apart." He woke up with a migraine two days after his release, and the pain in his arm, which he said lasted three years, was excruciating. He took two different medications, but they didn't work.
He had toast with tea before crawling, head spinning, from the kitchen to a chair and was "very uncomfortable" as he rested fitfully. When he slept, he had strange dreams, and then he woke up in "all sorts of pain again."
"And it wasn't long after that that I woke up screaming in the middle of the day," he said. He was watching himself the day of the attack, yelling so he would not jump into the water.
His partner, Deb, was home and said, "'You know you're doing that a lot,'" Pearson remembered. "That was when I knew that things weren't going all right."
The hardest part was being home alone during the day, dealing with the pain.
Do you worry about getting diseases from bug bites?
Absolutely
Only when I'm camping or hiking
Not really
Never
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
"It became a tough ask to try and get on with my life," he said on Conversations.
In John Hunter Hospital after the attack, he had met a fellow shark attack survivor, and then there was another attack shortly after his on the NSW Central Coast. He called the hospital and left his number, telling Kanowski he did so because "it's much better when things are not a surprise to you."
He kept up the habit, even asking news outlets to put him in touch with other survivors. The group grew, and Pearson spent his two-hour drives home from work on Fridays calling people in Bite Club. Sometimes, he'd speak to six or seven people over those two hours; other times, he'd talk to one.
The impact he was having didn't hit him until a survivor from Western Australia told him they were contemplating suicide but didn't want to let Pearson down when he called the next day.
Now, Bite Club includes members who survived attacks by sharks, crocodiles, lions, dingoes, alligators, hippopotamuses, bears, and wolves.
"It's a tough meeting, and it always is. But there's a connection there straightaway," Pearson said on Conversations. "And I often say other shark attack survivors are like family that you've never met before because you've got that connection. … You become very comfortable with each other very quickly after you have that conversation."
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.