16-Year-Old Surfer Bitten By Shark In Florida, Encounter Caught On Video

A 16-year-old surfer’s encounter with a shark and its subsequent attack last week near Daytona, Florida, was caught on camera.

The video showed Doyle Nielson paddling on his board at New Smyrna Beach when a shark rushed towards him and bit him on his right arm. During the incident, two sharks were seen darting through the same wave with surfers just feet away at Ponce Inlet near the beach.

"It felt like someone on their surfboard had come full speed directly at me and hit me super hard," Nielsen told Good Morning America. "And then after somebody had yelled, 'There's a shark, get out of there,' I realized what it was."

The incident was captured on camera by Sam Scribner, a photographer who used to surf before a spinal injury in 2016 left him a quadriplegic.

According to experts, Hurricane Larry created strong surf last week, which made it a desirable environment for sharks.

Scribner posted the video on Instagram in hopes of finding the teen from his video to make sure he was fine. "I sincerely hope that the kid is not too scarred from the chomp & he’s able to get back in the water as soon as possible," he said in the post.

Fortunately, Nielson reached the shore safely and had only suffered from a gash on his arm, reported ABC News.

Scribner was at the beach photographing surfers and Nielsen was right in the middle of his frame when the shark rushed towards him. "It's crazy how quickly it happened," he said to the outlet.

"I certainly don't want to villainize sharks, this is something that’s all too common in the waters around New Smyrna Beach. We are in their territory and sometimes those little (thankfully he was little) guys like to enact the stand your ground law," he wrote in the Instagram post.

According to Nielson, he is aware the incident will affect his mindset but he won’t let the experience stop him from getting into the water and surfing again.

The New Smyrna Beach attack is the latest in a string of shark incidents this year. As of Sept. 15, the U.S. experienced 36 shark attack bites this year, TracingSharks.com reported. Twenty-five of those incidents happened in Florida, five in Hawaii, and two in California, it said.

Shark bites and attacks are rare and a shark may only do so if they are curious or confused, according to America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).