The first two bites happened so fast he barely knew what had happened. But when the shark came back for a third bite, he saw its six-foot-long body coming toward him. It took his leg in its mouth and rolled to one side, attempting to pull him off his board. Zgura clutched the surfboard, struggling to keep it from flipping over. “I saw its side and belly and the black mark on the tip of its dorsal,” he says, indicating the markings of a blacktip shark, ubiquitous to these waters.

“Aw, shit!” he yelled as the shark finally let go.

Dawn Olivia, a surfing buddy in her 30s, was on her board a few feet away when the attack occurred. She looked on in muted horror as the blacktip fled the scene, leaving a cloud of blood fanning out around her friend. Then she saw the damage: Zgura’s flesh and muscle were hanging off his lower left calf bone. She couldn’t see his bleeding ankle and foot, still submerged in the water.

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