A tourist has recalled jabbing a tiger shark in the eyes just moments after watching it attack a fellow snorkeler.
Peppino Fappani, 69, said he stuck his middle finger in the shark’s eye three times as he came to the aid of another swimmer close to the shoreline of a five-star resort in Marsa Alam, Egypt.
Mr Fappani, a retired dentist, rushed out to sea to help Di Gioia, 48, an EU diplomat from Rome, who was attacked by the creature and later died of his injuries.
“I was able to stick my middle finger hard in his left eye three times, causing him pain. But he kept coming back,” Mr Fappani told The Daily Telegraph.
Mr Fappani tried to save Mr Gioia after he heard the diplomat’s wife screaming for help from the beach when he realised he was closest to him in the water.
But the shark soon seized Mr Fappani by the leg, and employees of a nearby diving centre who arrived by boat had to beat it with a long iron bar to fend it off.
“The guys from the diving centre arrived with a rubber dinghy and were trying to pull me back into the boat.
“He grabbed onto my right leg and wouldn’t let me be pulled up. That shark wanted to kill me,” Mr Fappani said.
He needed dozens of stitches to his right leg, as well as right hand and arm, but said he is now healing well after treatment in Egypt and Italy.
Egypt’s environment ministry said the shark had been caught and was being examined in a laboratory to try to determine the reasons for the rare attack.
The man’s father, Yury Popov, was forced to watch the attack helplessly from the shore as the predator circled the 23-year-old and eventually dragged him under the water.
Speaking to the 112 media outlet following his son’s death, Mr Popov said: “We went to the beach to relax. My son was attacked by a shark, it all happened in seconds.”
