Ambushed Diver Fights Off Great White Shark With Speargun

A 22-year-old diver who was spearfishing off California’s coast captured the moment he went from being the hunter to being the hunted.

Tyler McQuillen was paddling off Santa Barbara’s coast when his GoPro camera filmed him being ambushed from behind by a great white shark.

Initially, he thought his friends were playing a prank on him, he told “Inside Edition,” but then he looked around and found himself alone and with an injured foot.

“I thought I was going to die,” he recalled of the Sept. 1 attack.

Video shows him dropping his speargun as he absorbs the unexpected blow that caused him to lose a flipper. He quickly dives down to recover the weapon and within seconds of its recovery the gigantic beast returns to swipe past him. During a third passing, McQuillen is seen jabbing the shark with his speargun before it swims away.

The attack left him with two broken toes that he said are keeping him out of the water. Once they heal, though, he has no reservations about going back in, he said.