A Florida teen stayed calm after a scary incident off Melbourne Beach.
Michael Adler, a freshman at Fort Lauderdale's St. Thomas Aquinas High School, had just been knocked off his surfboard by a wave when he felt pain from his foot. Watch the Local 10 video above.
At first he thought he scrapped it on coral but within seconds, he knew he was bit by a shark.
"I was scared it was going to come back, so I paddled straight in, as fast as I possibly could," Adler told News 13.
Alder told WSVN there was a military combat guy on the beach who helped stop the bleeding.
Alder was transported to Holmes Regional Medical Center, where doctors performed surgery to repair four torn tendons.
Despite the close call, the young surfer told News 13 he'd be back in the water. "How many people get bit by a shark twice?"
While repeat bites may be rare, shark attacks in Florida are not.
Space Coast Daily reports that Florida had more than twice as many shark attacks as any other state last year according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File. The report finds that they were 663 attacks through 2010 with 11 of those being fatal.
Melbourne Beach, as well as other beaches on the state's Space Coast, have been called the “shark attack capital of the world.”
In March, researchers tracked daily swarms of 14,000 blacktip and spinner sharks off Florida's coast. Three Palm Beach beaches were closed when the sharks were spotted too close to shore.
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