Man who was ‘eaten alive’ by great white shark recalls how it felt

For most people, getting eaten alive by a shark is the stuff of nightmares – but for one Australian man, it actually happened.

Eric from New South Wales suffered a shark attack in 2007, and he’s reflected on his near death experience in disturbing detail.

Thankfully, he survived the brutal attack, which saw him struggling in the animal’s mouth for two minutes.

He was able to survive partly thanks to the fact he was wearing a lead-lined vest, but he did end up inside the animal's throat at one stage of the attack.

Speaking to Nine Network news after surviving the incident at the time, Eric also said that he attacked the animal’s eye and was able to escape.

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"Half my body was in its mouth. I felt down to the eye socket with my two fingers and poked them into the socket," he said.

"The shark reacted by opening its mouth and I just tried to wriggle out. It was still trying to bite me. It crushed my goggles into my nose and they fell into its mouth.

"I’ve never felt fear in my life like what I felt in the jaws of that white pointer. I went straight into its mouth, front onwards. Half my body was in its throat. It was like being in a dark cave.”

Describing how he was able to come up to the surface, with the shark following him in the water, saying: "It was just circling around my flippers, round in round in tight circles.

"The big round black eye, five inches wide, was staring straight into my face with just not one hint of fear, of any boat, or any human, or any other animal in the sea."

While great white sharks are some of the most feared predators in the world, very few of us will ever see the legendary fish in real life.

That’s because great white sharks are never held in captivity for one tragic reason.

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