Asher Jones, 8, was on a Bahamas vacation with his family when they decided to take part in a group boating excursion. The tour included what they thought would be an awesome experience: getting to hop into the water to swim with a group of small nurse sharks.
The tour staff promised the family that these sharks were harmless and that they’d be safe in the water.
The most that could happen would be a shark “suctioning” onto their skin, but it wouldn’t hurt.
Well… that wasn’t the case.
Asher stepped into the knee-deep water and started swimming alongside the sharks. But moments later, one of the sharks swum up from behind him and grabbed onto the right side of his back.
According to Wikipedia, “Nurse sharks are obligate suction feeders capable of generating suction forces that are among the highest recorded for any aquatic vertebrate to date. Although their small mouths may limit the size of prey, they can exhibit a suck-and-spit behavior and/or shake their head violently to reduce the size of food items.”
The frightening attack was captured on camera by his mom, Christine, as her son let out a piercing scream. She called it “the kind of scream that makes a mom’s world go into slow motion.”
That’s when Asher’s father, Jeremy, jumped into action.