Surfing is an amazing sport, but it can also be life-changing. Especially when you share the water with some of the biggest animals on the globe, it becomes all the more challenging. That is what happened to a surfer in Sydney, Australia, who had a near-range encounter with a humpback whale on Sunday.
Another surfer captured the video of the encounter. That surfer was using a GoPro camera installed on his board. The videographer said he was terrified by what he saw.
A near-fatal encounter with the giant mammal
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Jason Breen, 55, was windsurfing off Sydney’s northern beaches. Meanwhile, a juvenile humpback whale suddenly came up from the water and clung to Barren, sending him flying into the sky. Breen said the whale dragged him almost “20 or 30 feet under”. The whale then continued its path, seemingly undeterred by the incident. Breen was not hurt but was left shaken. 9News uploaded the video of the encounter quoting Breen “Just got hit by a whale!”
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A shocked Breen thought he was going to survive while facing this. Post the incident, he was quoted as saying by the Guardian, “I thought I was gone to be honest, I thought for a few seconds, ‘This is what it’s like to die.’” He also pointed out that the whale was probably a juvenile one which might have saved him from losing his life. Humpback whales happen to be some of the largest and heaviest creatures on the earth.
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Witness kept “triple zero ready”
Meanwhile, one passerby, Paul Netteback captured the terrifying happening. he got the shock of his life at what he saw. Nettback later said, “I wanted to keep filming but then I thought someone might have just died, so I stopped filming and I got triple zero ready [the Australian emergency number].” Truly Breen was lucky enough to have escaped death. But not everyone is.
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Recently, a 61-year-old man died after a whale struck his boat in Botany Bay and flung him and another man into the bay. Keeping such incidents in mind, it made perfect sense when Breen said, “There’s no way I’d be here like I’d be gone for sure. It was really a one in a million.”
Watch this story: Alpine Skiing Legend Lindsey Vonn Faces the Wrath of a Poisonous Oceanic Creature While Enjoying Her Surfing Spree