Shark Week: Surviving a shark attack

Shark Week is coming up and I think this is one that they're covering that many of us remember. Paul DeGelder survived an attack by a bull shark in the Sydney harbour while he was conducting an operation for the Australian Navy as a bomb disposal diver. John Stenvall from the Backstage Experience sat down with him to talk about the experience as part of Discovery Shark Week which begins this Sunday and we are so lucky to be joined by him now as we talk about Shark Week on Discovery Channel. Look at that background. First of all you have to tell me were you in that? Did you get that video yourself? How were you down with the sharks? What's going on behind you? Well what's funny is this week on the Backstage Experience it's all about Shark Week and one of the things I did get to do was go shark diving with Jai Courtney for the movie Dangerous Animals. This footage however I did not film so no I did not film this footage but we did go shark diving over in Long Island this week on the Backstage Experience but yeah I got to talk to Paul DeGelder for Shark Week and obviously he was in an attack ended up becoming hired by the Shark Week team and has done over 40 episodes now for Shark Week. I got to talk to him about all things sharks. Paul it's a pleasure to meet you man how you doing? I'm doing well John what's going on? Dude this week on Shark Week you got a lot of shows coming up. I mean you got what Invasion of Mega Sharks, Bull Shark Dinner, Ultimate Shark Dive if I'm not mistaken. And then they'll probably show some of the old ones through the day as well and I've been doing this for a while. I've got nearly 40 shows under my belt at this point so you never know what's going to pop up. I would guess that they're probably going to show one of the scariest shows that I did last year too which was how to survive a shark attack where I had to actually get attacked by sharks to show people how to survive so that was a wild one. Y'all didn't film it in Sydney Harbor right because that's where your attack is. You're doing pretty much like bomb disposal if I'm not mistaken while you were down there and a bull shark came up right? Well not that day I wasn't but that was part of my job yeah bomb disposal on land and underwater hard hat diving on the tools. But that day I was simply pretending to be an attack swimmer and the R&D department of the military were testing new equipment to see if they could use radar and stuff to detect me. So I was just swimming on the surface it was a pretty boring day actually but then along comes the bull shark it makes it exciting. When it occurred did you realize what's happening at first and then you're like oh my goodness and then you go into survival mode? Yeah absolutely it's on the internet if you google navy diver shark attack the footage of me getting attacked comes up. It was a fight for my life and I did not think I was going to make it at all and I ended up having to swim back to my safety boat with one hand and one leg through a pool of my own blood. Fortunately my teammates kept me alive and yeah I was terrified I thought my life was over you know one leg one hand how am I going to do my job how am I going to do anything and I just pushed all of that negativity away and focused on like rebuilding my body and strengthening my mind and I ended up getting back to work with the navy as a diving instructor in about six or seven months. So pretty proud that I was able to do that very grateful to the navy for allowing me to do that and then you know along comes discovery channel shark week wants to do an interview and that just turned into a whole new career and now I get paid to travel the world have adventures teach people about sharks and try not to die. Yeah I mean you got the best job in the world I think I think it's truly truly amazing and especially like what you've overcome I can only imagine you know being in the bed and be like all right this isn't going to let me define me who I am and I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and doing what I love which is diving you know so I think that's incredible. Well we here in northern California are part of that triangle that people like to talk about up and down the California coast to Mexico out to Hawaii we have some activity by the Farallon Islands are there any stories or anything perhaps hitting close to home in northern California and shark week we should look out for? Well what I think was interesting that he actually shared with me in the longer form in the interview something as a surfer that I didn't even think of is they now sell tourniquets that you can attach to your surfboard or to your wetsuit so it's like if you are out surfing and you do end up getting attacked they do now sell tourniquets that you can just rip off and then you can end up tying yourself off because he was like a leash is not going to be strong enough to be able to hold the pressure on a wound it'll slip off but they do sell tourniquets now which I found absolutely fascinating and talk about I mean he ended up losing his arm and his leg in the attack but nine months later he was out there teaching diving instructing for the navy again like just an incredible story. Absolutely shark week so much more than just cool video but some educational and important safety messages as well John thank you so much for joining us we will mark you safe in shark week so far so far