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SANDY — When Asher Jones went back to school after his Bahamian family vacation, he easily became the coolest kid on campus.
“When I told everybody I had been bitten by a shark, they said, ‘Are you OK?’” Jones said.
The 8-year-old and his family took a 10-day trip to the Bahamas in November. On the last day of the trip, while standing in shallow water, Asher was bit by a nurse shark.
“The water was so clear and there were sharks swimming near my feet,” he said. “When the shark bit me, it felt like an alien grabbing my back and just squeezing. It was super painful. It was like a really bad sting feelings.”
His father, Jeremy Jones, witnessed the whole encounter and quickly pulled the small shark off of him.
“The shark went out of the water and put his mouth on Asher’s back,” he said. “I was thinking it might have just suctioned onto him.”
The family was told by their excursion tour guide that the docile sharks were not dangerous and rarely bit people. When Asher was attacked, though, everyone got out of the water immediately.
“There is chaos immediately, everybody in the water — the kids, the adults are screaming,” Jones said.
His mother, who was on a nearby dock, helped get him to safety.
“He just kept saying, ‘Mom, am I going to be OK,’” Christine Jones said. “I kept saying, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be OK.’”
Luckily, he walked away with only minor cuts from the shark’s teeth. Asher is now trying to make sense of it all.
“Apparently I was super like bright or white and so they thought I was food,” he said.
As for getting back in the water, it’s a chance Asher is willing to take.
“I think it’s not going to bite me again,” he said. “Like that was crazy and super rare.”
Asher posted the video to his YouTube channel.
