'I've never hit anything so hard': What it's like to be attacked by a shark

It was the last hour of the last day of Peter Smith's holiday in Tobago when he decided to take a dip in the sea.

"The conditions were perfect for a swim," the retired IT director recalls. "I dived into the waves, swam out no more than 20 feet (6m), and stood waist-deep in the water."

He and his wife Joanna, from Hertfordshire, were away with friends, and the last thing on their minds was the risk of shark attacks - they are unheard of on this tiny Caribbean island.

"Suddenly I felt a very heavy object hit my leg. I look down and there's a shark - and it's big," Peter says.

"You're talking maybe 10 foot (3m). That's when your brain works at 1,000 miles an hour."

He had been bitten by a bull shark, one of the most dangerous sharks in the world and notorious for hunting in shallow waters.

In his first interview since the attack in April 2024, Peter tells BBC News about his terrifying experience - and why he's still not scared of sharks.

'The situation got serious really fast'

The 66-year-old says he instantly recognised the jaws clenching onto his leg as those of a bull shark. Fearing he would be dragged underwater, he decided to put up a fight.

"I start punching the shark. To be honest I don't know what I was trying to do, but I was hitting it," Peter says. "I can honestly say I've never hit anything as hard as I hit that shark.

"After hitting my leg, it managed to attack my left arm and then my stomach. The situation got serious really fast. I lost a lot of blood."

Finally, the animal stopped its attack long enough for Peter to be dragged from the water by people nearby.

His friends John and Moira, who were beside him in the sea, each helped fight the shark and raise the alarm. Back on the beach, Joanna, alerted by Moira's screams, ran to the shoreline.

"I remember going into the water and seeing his terrible injuries. I could see bones, it was just awful," Joanna recalls. "And somebody said, 'Get her away from here.'"

Peter was taken to the only hospital on Tobago with deep lacerations to his stomach, a large bite on one arm and a huge part of his upper thigh bitten off.

He describes the pain kicking in as he was being put in the ambulance. "I'm screaming, I'm crying, losing a lot of blood and losing consciousness. People are screaming at me to stay awake."

Joanna, 64, a retired NHS worker, says she didn't know whether her husband would make it out of the ambulance alive: "He was so pale, it was really scary."

She remembers how the Tobagan doctors asked if she could sign a form for her husband's limbs to be removed if necessary - then doctors realised he should be taken off the island. "They'd run out of blood…he'd taken all the blood in Tobago," Joanna says.

He was taken to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, for specialist treatment. Over the next few weeks, he underwent dozens of operations - including one where medics told him they would put a special membrane over a wound to give a better surface for a skin graft.

"Then they laughed. So we were saying, 'Well, what's funny?' And they said, 'the membrane is made from shark'." Peter laughs. "So I have a piece of shark in my leg."

So began the long road to recovery. His upper thigh injury meant he had to learn to walk again and issues with the nerve in his arm, severed by the shark's bite, means he still has no feeling in his fingers and difficulty gripping – issues he will have for life.

"I'm really grateful. At least I have mobility issues. At least I have limbs," he reflects. "At one stage it looked like I wasn't going to have any."

Not only is he thankful to his doctors, but his friends who came to help him during the attack, too. "I fought it along with other people who were really brave. I'm forever grateful to them."

The bull shark has been linked to several recent attacks in Australia. At the end of January, the country saw four shark attacks in just 48 hours, one resulting in the death of a 12-year-old boy. Three of the attacks were within a nine mile (15km) stretch of each other on the east coast.

It's led experts to caution that shark attacks are still very rare relative to the higher rates of people using the water for leisure - and urge the public to remember the ocean is a wild space with risks.

According to the world-renowned International Shark Attack File, the 2024 attack on Peter was the first and only shark attack ever recorded in Tobago.

Not living in fear

Shark expert Tom 'The Blowfish' Hird explains that bull sharks have "certainly got a fire inside them" and "are known to retaliate when they have been either chased by boats or when they've been tagged".

But he says the fact that fatalities from shark bites are rare shows humans aren't necessarily on the menu. "Let's be very crystal clear here: if a bull shark, or a tiger, or a great white did want to prey on a human, there would be no body."

The demonisation of sharks is unfair, Hird believes, and he says most sharks realise quickly that humans often fight back, and aren't good to eat.

Peter doesn't want what happened to him to tarnish the reputation of the Tobago and feels he has no cause to be scared.

"The people in Tobago were really good to me. They depend on tourism for their livelihood. I'd go back," he insists. "I still think of the sky and the sea.

"What's the point in surviving a shark attack if you're going to live the rest of your life in fear?"