A U.S. Coast Guard member played hardcore lifeguard this week near Hawaii, where he opened fire on a shark to defend dozens of his shipmates in the water.
Crew aboard the cutter Kimball shared photos and videos of the hair-raising encounter on Facebook Wednesday, where they described the incident as “right out of a Hollywood movie.”
The shark showed up to crash a swim call, which involves Navy or Coast Guard crews taking a break from their ships to swim around in the ocean. The Kimball set up an “armed shark watch” while 30-40 people took a dip in the Pacific Ocean, according to the post.
“Shark!” someone on the bridge suddenly shouted over the radio, according to the Kimball‘s Facebook page. Crew reported a large shark approaching the swimmers at a distance of about 9 metres away. They say it was likely a longfin mako or pelagic thresher shark, and it appeared to be between 2 and 2.4 metres long.
“Not something to mess with!” the ship’s crew wrote.
Maritime Enforcement Specialist 1st Class Samuel Cintron, who was on shark watch, immediately opened fire to protect his shipmates, the Kimball post says. He fired several “well-aimed” bursts into the water, deliberately missing the shark while trying to spook it into fleeing.
“The shark would wave off with each burst but kept coming back toward our shipmates,” the post says.
The swimmers noticed the shark and quickly hurried out of the water while Cintron continued to fire into the ocean.
“All hands are safe and accounted for,” the Kimball crew said. “We even saved the inflatable unicorn!”
The Coast Guard routinely watches out for sharks during swim calls but it’s extremely rare for one to actually show up, the Kimball crew said.
“We have hundreds of years at sea between all of us and no one has seen or heard of a shark actually showing up during a swim call,” they wrote in the post. “This goes to show why we prepare for any and everything. We just didn’t think it would be a swim call shark attack!”
Cintron did not appear to actually hit the shark, which seemed to be unharmed, the Coast Guard crew said.
“Our goal was to keep it away from shipmates, not harm it if possible. It was most likely curious and not looking for a meal.”
The shark eventually swam off and joined a few other sharks.
“This is a sea story each of us will be retelling for YEARS!!!” the crew wrote.
They added that they blew off some steam that night by watching two films: Jaws and Sharknado.