Bizarre moment shark ‘pushes’ on 8-year-old boy as he re-boards boat with coral trout on Great Barrier Reef
- Shark pounces on boy climbing on boat after spearfishing
- Predator was trying to get the fish the boy had killed
- The boy is later shown unharmed from the close encounter
An eight-year-old boy appears to have had a surprisingly close call with a shark as he climbed back onto a boat after spearfishing.
In a viral TikTok video – which has been questioned by some on social media – a man asks the boy, Manni, what he brought back from the ocean after fishing around Lady Musgrave Island on the Central Coast from Queensland.
Manni, who clings to a ladder at the back of the boat, hoists a large fish onto the diving platform and starts talking about a shark.
Young spearfisherman Manni hoists his fish onto the diving platform behind the boat
The shark then suddenly appears, rushing to remove the fish from Manni’s hands, but ends up slamming into the air, its head hitting the boy.
According to the video’s director, Manni emerged from the close encounter unscathed.
“It was just a little, it hurt my chest a bit but that’s it,” Manni told Nine News.
When asked if the random attack would stop him from diving, Manni replied, “I’m going in.”
However, not everyone was convinced the video was legit.
Moments after loading the fish onto the boat, a shark appears out of nowhere to swoop down on Manni
“Looks like the shark is dead and someone is pushing it on the kid,” one skeptic wrote in the comments.
A sequel to the video shows Manni showing off a fish he speared, though it looks different from the one he previously threw on the boat.
Granted, if he had any ill effects from the shark encounter, Manni doesn’t show them as he hauls in a big fish with a grin on his face.
Despite what becomes a very direct encounter with the predator, Manni emerges unscathed.
The videographer, however, is not too impressed.
“That’s shit, the shittiest fish in the ocean, why did you even shoot it?” asks the man.
“Because it kept swimming to me, it didn’t stop, it was stupid, it was just stupid to keep swimming to me like ‘come shoot me,’ so I just shot it,” Manni replies.
“You’re going to eat it yourself,” says the filmmaker.
In comments, he later revealed that the milkfish had been donated to a local.
Daily Mail Australia has approached the videographer for further comment.
