Shark bite survivor and friends tell story to the 'Today' show

Charles “C.J.” Wickersham had already caught a dozen hogfish the day he was attacked by a 9-foot bull shark. It was supposed to be a day of fun on the Gulf of Mexico for seven friends. But that changed quickly as Wickersham, a Longboat Key native, bobbed in the water.

“I looked down and saw a shark on my leg,” Wickersham told NBC’s Kerry Sanders on a segment that ran on this morning’s “Today" show that was filmed partially on the Anna Maria waters where the Sept. 24 attack occurred.

Wickersham said that he instantly pushed down with his spearfishing gun and “must have pressed pretty hard because he let go pretty fast.”

Wickersham yelled “Shark!” and two young women in the group who were in the water on floating chairs scrambled to get to the boat.

Wickersham’s friends, Max Gazzo and Connor Bystrom, saw the whole thing unfold before Bystrom jumped in the water to help Wickersham into the boat.

“There was no thinking about, ‘Oh man, there’s a shark in there that’s looking to bite you.’ There wasn’t time to think about it,” Bystrom said.

Gazzo and Bystrom used a rope as a tourniquet before rescue workers arrived. Wickersham lost half of his blood from the attack and was taken via Bayflite helicopter to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg.

Dr. Robert Hueter, senior scientist and director of Mote’s Center for Shark Research, said on the segment that Wickersham was lucky.

“Quite often when you have a bite-and-release like this on a leg, the shark gets the femoral artery and the people bleed out before they can get medical help so this guy was really, really lucky,” he said.

Wickersham, who is now recovering at home after more than a week in the hospital, said he knows how lucky he is.

“My friends saved my life,” he said with a smile.

As Sanders ended the segment, he held up the jaw of a similar shark and said that doctors lost count of Wickersham’s stitches “after the first 100.” Anchor Ann Curry, at the “Today Show” studio in New York, gasped before wishing Wickersham well.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].