A teenager was left with life-changing injuries while swimming with colleagues on a break from work – and the entire incident was caught on camera.
In 1994, then 19-year-old student Heather Boswell was aboard the research vessel NOAAS Discoverer for a six month stint where she worked in the galley. The team were in the tranquil Pacific Ocean, 300 nautical miles off Chile’s coastline when they decided to take advantage of the peaceful waters for a spot of swimming.
It was a bright, sunny day on March 23, 1994, when Heather’s life would change forever. As she swam in the water, and a colleague filmed from the safety of the vessel, someone spotted the grey shadow of a great white shark.
Estimated to be between 14 and 16 feet, the ferocious predator circled the swimmers. In the footage of the incident, terrified onlookers shouted the word nobody wants to hear when enjoying the ocean: “Shark! Shark!”
Heather started swimming back towards the boat when the powerful fish clamped onto her left leg. She let out a scream and called to her colleagues for help.
The shark pulled her under the water but Heather re-surfaced as the sea surrounding her turned a deep shade of red.
Three Discoverer crew members rushed to her aid in a boat. Matthew Ofthus, Jon Knox and Lisa Glover entered into a “tug-of-war”, with two of them pulling Heather out of the water and jaws of the fish, while a third struck the shark with a stick.
The chaos was caught on camera, with cries of “everybody out of here” heard directed at the other panicked swimmers still in the ocean.
As Heather was pulled out of the water, one person was heard saying: “It took her leg off – it took it off, it’s gone.”
WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT IN VIDEO BELOW…
Another swimmer was then targeted as they tried to climb back onto Discoverer via a rope ladder. To scare the shark away and deter it from the scene, crew members fired gunshots which saved the crew member from being attacked.
The shark is said to have retreated back to the depths below while the crew worked to save Heather – and what remained of her left leg.
In a later interview, Heather recalled: “I turned around and I saw his dorsal fin – the shark clamped down and the shark got my leg.”
Heather’s story was later featured on the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and, years later, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show where she reflected on the moment she lost her leg from above the knee.
The survivor explained: “When they were playing tug-of-war with the shark, they reached down and grabbed my arms and pulled me but the shark still had a hold of my left leg.
“There was a tug-of-war and I felt a pop. I thought, ‘I hope my leg dislocated because if it didn’t, it would be gone’ and I looked down and my leg was gone.”
Great white sharks are powerful animals that are vital apex predators that help ensure the health of the oceans. Per White Shark Ocean, they “play a vital role in keeping other animal populations in check”.
They do this by “preying on seals and sea lions” which helps “control their numbers, which, in turn, safeguards the equilibrium of fish populations”.
White Shark Ocean adds: “This delicate balance ensures the sustainability and health of the entire food web.”
Unfortunately for humans, when we enter the natural environment and habitat of another species, it comes with great risk. Many human and shark encounters are a case of mistaken identity, with hungry sharks incorrectly assuming a human is a seal or sea lion, or another viable food source.
