People mocked me online for being attacked by a shark, so I started a support group for survivors like me

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dave Pearson, who survived a shark attack in March 2011 off the coast of New South Wales, Australia, and founded the survivor group Bite Club. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I had actually purchased a new surfboard the evening before I got bit, and was looking forward to testing it out. So me and a few mates headed out to the beach and had a normal afternoon surf, as we do.

I’d only been out in the water for about five minutes, and I was on my stomach paddling back out after my third wave. I was looking over my left side at my mates when all of a sudden, the whole afternoon changed and a shark came up from just off to my right-hand side.

Its nose hit my head and its bottom jaw hit my board. It flipped out of the water with my surfboard and my right arm stuck in its mouth.

We tumbled to the ocean floor, but it left me alone pretty quick, and I was able to get back down on my board.

When I looked down at my arm I saw my forearm muscle hanging off. Blood squirted out around me in about a 6-foot radius; the water was going red quite quickly around me.

My mates pulled me in after I got knocked around and pulled underwater by a couple of waves. They tied a tourniquet around my arm that saved my life while we waited an hour and a half for the paramedics to arrive.

It was all my mates, you know, that did the heroic thing. It’s amazing how people will just step up and do the extraordinary thing when they need to without realizing what they’re actually doing.

People wanted to attack me for getting attacked

When I was helicoptered into John Hunter Hospital at Newcastle, the whole airstrip was lit up, and the pilot told me that there were about 20 news crews waiting for me.

It was because the week prior, there had been another shark attack near Newcastle and that girl was still in the hospital. So there was a media frenzy on it, and right from the start, I got a lot of unwanted publicity.

Later, when I was recuperating, I got on my laptop. I started reading the comments on the news stories about my attack and found I was copping a flogging.

There were comments like, “who does this idiot think he is surfing at night?” And, “you know, I bet he wants to go out and kill all the sharks now.”

So I thought I had a chance to set the record straight and tried replying. I said, “‘Hey guys, this is Dave. I’m lying in hospital at the moment. No, I wasn’t surfing at night. It was 5:30 in the afternoon. And no, I don’t want to kill sharks. You know, I’m quite happy to leave them alone if they’re leaving me alone.”

But the comments came flooding back with people insisting that I was reckless and wanted to go out and kill all sharks. It was funny, these people just wanted to attack me for getting attacked.

As you might imagine, I wasn’t in a great emotional state at the time. I remember slamming my computer down after typing the last message, because it was actually unbelievable.

I was shaking, I was physically shaking, and in tears. And that was it.

I remember saying to my partner, “You know, yesterday I was a pretty good guy. But today, I got attacked by a shark, and now I’m the worst person in the world.”

When you realize you’re not alone, it’s easier to deal with

I take full responsibility for what happens to me in the ocean. I made the decision to go swimming and surfing. Even so, you know, I had a pretty tough time as you would have guessed after the shark attack. It can be really lonely.

I went to therapy, and tried to look around for support groups, but didn’t find any. I ended up talking to the girl who had been attacked a week before me.

The similarities in our stories were unbelievable — we both had injuries to our left arm and to the right side of our face. I was attacked by a bull shark and she was attacked by a white shark, but they were both similar sizes.

But more importantly, there were similarities in the way we were feeling about it, and that was strangely comforting to both of us. We kept in touch quite a bit afterward.

After that, whenever I was interviewed for a news story, I asked them to pass on my information to any other shark attack survivors they were talking to.

I wanted to know what was in my future. I wanted to know how long my pain was going to last.

And so I started driving all over the place to try and meet up with people that they sent my way. I’d also started phoning hospitals after hearing about an attack on the news, and offering up my information in case the people needed someone to talk to.

Every time I met someone, we’d just sit down and chat and it was like we knew each other already. We knew each other’s feelings, and we managed to make each other feel better just by hanging around and chatting.

The more of us who got together, the better we all made each other feel. When you realize you’re not alone in something, it’s a lot easier to deal with.

I thought, “Wow, there’s something in this.” But my search for a support group turned up nothing.

So that’s when we started Bite Club.

Bite Club is a group that supports shark bite victims getting healthy 

Since then, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with people who’ve had a shark attack. There are some amazing stories that I’ve heard from people, things that just blow your mind.

We organize lots of stuff online because we’re spread all over the globe. I don’t think there’s a country in the world that isn’t represented in our group.

We also do in-person events. One that sticks out was possible because of funding from a local public affairs program. We got a group of survivors together to go dive in an aquarium with gray nurse sharks.

We had some people who hadn’t been back in the water since their attack facing their fear in a controlled environment. It was cathartic for a lot of us; it was really good.

That’s the basic recipe of what we try to do. We’re a group of people who’ve come together from traumatic events, who are supporting each other getting healthy and becoming productive.

I certainly missed those days prior to my attack. But I don’t think I’d change anything anyway, because I’ve become a different person because of it.

And I’ve met so many inspirational people since, it’s just like, now my bucket is full. The people I’ve met and the stories I’ve been told restore my faith in humanity, in a way.

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