Dylan McWilliams has survived being bitten by a shark, a bear and a rattlesnake – not all on the same day, but it’s still a distinction not many people can match.
McWilliams, who said he was “either really lucky or really unlucky,” was attacked by a shark on Thursday in Hawaii, Fox News reported, and received 20 stitches for a bite on his leg.
That made three times in the last four years the 20-year-old from Grand Junction, Colorado has escaped being killed by wild animals.
It’s little surprise that McWilliams likes to spend time outdoors, which he was doing boogie boarding at Shipwreck beach in Poipu, which forms part of the Kauai coastline, when the shark bit him in his right calf Thursday morning.
Recounting the ordeal, McWilliams told the Hawaii News Now that he saw what appeared to be a six-to-eight-foot tiger shark swimming beneath his board, which he gave a swift kick before swimming to safety.
Last July he was attacked by a 280-poud black bear while sleeping outdoors at a summer camp in Colorado.
McWilliams described how he was forced to get nine staples in his scalp after the animal bit him the head and dragged him 12 feet.
“I never thought I would be attacked by a bear,” he told CBS News at the time. “I woke up to a crunching sound and a lot of pain … The bear had a hold of my head and was dragging me across the ground.”
The bear attack came three years after McWilliams was bitten by a pygmy faded rattlesnake while hiking out of a canyon in Utah, The New York Post reported.
Luckily the amount of venom in McWilliams’ system was not enough to kill him, just leave him ill for a day or two.
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