US: Shark rips off man's finger as he got too close to unhook it; airlifted to hospital

A horrific incident has been doing rounds on the internet, where a man's finger was torn off by a shark when he tried to remove a hook from the sea creature. The video that originally surfaced on TikTok shows the terrifying shark attack. The incident took place when a fisherman named Brett Reeder took his family out for a fishing trip off the coast of Florida, US on Tuesday.

The man took his family off shore and while he was trying to impress his son, he hooked the shark. Later, he held onto the shark's fin and placed his other hand right under its mouth to lift it up from the water. And at that time the shark bit Brett's hand, thrashing around with blood covering its teeth. "Oh damn it! It got my god damn pinky, F***!" he yelled as his son watched in shock. The wild sea creature eventually let the man go as he shouted in pain and his family members cry out in shock.

Brett was airlifted to the hospital 

Later, the wife shared the video on TikTok and explained that her husband had to be airlifted to the hospital. However, he drove the boat 25 minutes back to shore himself in that situation while his wife calmed the kids. While recalling the incident which occurred while he was shark fishing in the Content Keys, the man said: “I’m the guy who possibly lost his finger to a lemon shark."

“We’d hooked our last shark of the day [a 6-foot lemon shark],” Reeder described. “And I needed my hook back, so I tried to get ahold of him to get my hook back and got unlucky," he added.

It is to mention that the incident comes amid a surge in shark attacks as there have been six attacks over the past month off of New York’s Long Island alone. The latest attack was reported on Wednesday after 16-year-old Max Haynes was bitten on the foot while surfing near Kismet Beach on Fire Island.

Image: Unsplash