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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Charlotte Hawes

World’s fastest shark mauls diver as he screams in chilling attack caught on camera

A chilling video has surfaced of a diver being mauled in a savage attack by the world's fastest shark.

Chad Patti and his friend Josh Loucks were spearfishing on New Year's Day when he was attacked by a 10ft shortfin mako shark around 70 miles off of Florida's coast in the US.

Mr Patti, 30, had a GoPro camera strapped to his head at the time of the attack, catching the terrifying encounter on film.

The diver had just returned to the surface of the water when the massive mako shark suddenly charged at him from below.

In the video, viewers can hear the screams of the terrified fisherman as his friend dives into the water to come to his rescue.

The diver screamed for help as the world’s fastest shark mauled him (Chad Patti/Facebook)

Mr Patti claimed he was convinced the 10ft shark, which can swim up to 45mph, had devoured his scuba-diving fin as it had chomped down on it before vanishing.

Speaking to the Pensacola News Journal, he said: "It basically shoved my knee to my chest, almost knocked the wind out of me, knocked my gun out of my hand, partially flooded my mask and I did a summersault in the water.

The diver was convinced the shark devoured his scuba diving fin during the attack (Chad Patti/Facebook)

"The first scream, the 'help,' I didn’t think I had a leg, honestly. It wasn’t just a bump.

"I got it [the video] slowed down five times the speed and you can see the shark clearly has the fin in its mouth. You can see him crush it.

"It was a predatory strike from the mako. I was his prey. There was no mistaken identity. There was no fish in the water. No blood in the water."

The shark launched itself at Mr Patti (Chad Patti/Facebook)

He went on to explain that the shark had grabbed the fin on his foot to launch itself at him - which is said to be a popular hunting tactic used by the species to immobilise their prey.

"It did what any mako does. It kind of takes out the motor, cuts the tail off the fish in the first strike and then it doubles back and finishes it off," Mr Patti said.

Luckily, Mr Patti was not injured in the attack (Chad Patti/Facebook)

"When it hit my fin, what it was doing was it was trying to take the motor out.

"Luckily the boat was there and my buddy Josh jumped in the water."

However, the diver managed to escape the terrifying ordeal uninjured and despite the incident, Mr Patti says he is still willing to go fishing as he won't let it stop him from "doing something [he] loves".

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