Wellington: A New Zealand man has survived being attacked by a shark: driving it off with his knife, stitching his own wound onshore and going to the pub for a beer before heading to hospital. Junior doctor James Grant was spearfishing with friends near Colac Bay at the base of the South Island on Saturday when he was attacked by what he believed was a sevengill shark. The 24-year-old was in about two metres of murky water when he felt a tug on his leg, which he initially thought was a friend playing a trick on him. "I looked behind to see who it was and got a bit of a shock," he told Radio New Zealand. Advertisement He didn't see the shark and had no idea how big it was. He said he thought it might have been about 20 centimetres across the jaw. However, he wasn't scared. "[I thought] bugger, now I have to try and get this thing off my leg." He already had his diving knife in his hand and stabbed at the shark. "I am not sure how effective it was. I guess it let go so something must have happened, put a few nicks in it." He quickly made it onto rocks on the shore. It wasn't until he took off his wetsuit - borrowed from a friend - that he saw the bites, up to about five centimetres long. He said he was thankful for the seven millimetres of wetsuit neoprene He tried to get the attention of his three friends, who were spearfishing just around the bay, but they did not take him seriously. "I thought surely he hasn't been bitten, there's no way he has been bitten, he's got to be taking the piss," Mackley Lindsay said. His friends carried on fishing while Dr Grant tacked the wounds together with a needle and thread from his first-aid kit for his pig-hunting dogs. The group then went to the Colac Bay Tavern, where he was given a bandage because he was dripping blood on the floor.
