A 62-year-old man was swimming in a bay off the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Pacific Grove, California, on June 22, 2022, when a Great White shark at least 14.5 feet long bit him, lacerating his upper left arm, upper legs and lower torso. The man shouted for help while his wounds bled profusely. Paul W. Bandy, 42, an off-duty police officer of Folsom, California, and his wife, Aimee Johns, 49, a registered nurse of Folsom, were paddle boarding about 900 feet away from the man. They heard calls for help and paddled toward the scene. Meanwhile, Heath Braddock, a 43-year-old business owner of Elkhorn, California, on the beach, was alerted of the shark attack by nearby bystanders, paddled out to the scene atop two stackable surfboards, arriving after Bandy, but before Johns. Once all three people had arrived, Bandy and Braddock worked to move the man onto one of the surfboards Braddock had brought to the scene. Braddock then paddled toward shore with the man in tow, his hands grasping Braddock’s ankle as Johns grasped the back of the board and helped propel the unit along by paddling with her feet. Bandy followed the trio via his paddle board and called 911 en route. The man was attended to by several bystanders on the beach that were also trained medical professionals until paramedics arrived and transported him to the hospital. Bandy, Johns, and Braddock were not injured during the rescue, and the man survived, but he remained in rehabilitation six months later.
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