Man Flying a Drone Takes Closer Look at Video Footage, Realizes Oblivious Boy Isn't Alone in Shallow Water
From alligators and bears to tornadoes and lightning, individuals around the world have a higher chance of experiencing these possibly-fatal encounters with nature than encountering sharks.
However, for one boy swimming in the Bahamas, that simply wasn’t the case as drone footage displayed the harrowing moment he narrowly escaped shark-filled waters.
The drone’s cameraman, Atem Tkachenko, was using the device to capture stunning images of the beach’s crystal clear waters and sandy shore as a young boy splashed along the shore.
The scene was quick to turn from serenity to panic as four sharks were spotted swimming in the same waters of the boy who swam directly in their path.
“Run! Run!,” Tkachenko reportedly yelled to the boy, who quickly moved out of the water.
“Thank God he heard me,” Tkachenko later recalled.
The other adults present on the shore were reportedly unable to see the sharks swimming up to the boy from their viewpoint.
Though the odds of encountering a shark are slim to none, waters in the Bahamas are filled with sharks and exotic fish, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.
In September 2017, footage showed a dramatic encounter between a diver and a shark as the diver viciously punched the creature after it took food from a bait box.
And, though controversial, the practice of feeding sharks in the Bahamas still remains.
Why then, in areas where these sharks are so often seen, is there so much fear of sharks from people the world over?
Gregory Skomas, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marin Fisheries, suggests it may be a primal instinct of humans that becomes triggered when seeing — or encountering — one of nature’s most frightful creatures.
Skomal credits the evolution of humans’ senses and the survival instincts that alert each individual of a potential threat, despite how minuscule that threat may actually be.
“There’s a deep-seated fear in all humans of being bitten by some animal, either on land or in the seas,” Skomal said. “And the ocean looks dark and deep and foreign to us.”
“It embellishes that fear.”
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