This is the moment a six year-old girl ran for her life after coming within inches of a shark just a few feet from the shoreline of a Hawaiian beach.
Anela Rezentes was splashing in the shallow water and jumping over some waves, while visiting Oahu’s Kalama Beach on Sunday, when the shark – believed to be a blacktip – began circling her.
The youngster was filmed with a terrified expression on her face as she began running out of the water towards her mom Sheri Gouveia, who was filming her daughter’s day at the beach and did not realize what was happening.
‘My soul left my body,’ Rezentes told local television station KHON. ‘I saw the shark. I didn’t notice it was behind my back, so I really wanted to run out. I was really scared.’
Fortunately, she was able to get out of the water without coming to any harm, and was seen clutching her goggles as she ran, Gouveia’s video shows.
A shark came within inches of Anela Rezentes when she was splashing in the water off the coast of Oahu on Sunday. The creature’s fin is visible
It proceeded to circle her just a few feet from the shore of the beach, and Rezentes said she was ‘really scared’
Rezentes was able to run out of the water, clutching her goggles. Her mom Sheri Gouveia, who was filming, said the close encounter left her young daughter ‘hysterical’
‘By the time she came out of the water, she was hysterical,’ Gouveia told KHON, recounting how she thought she was just taking a video of her daughter enjoying a day at the beach when it happened.
‘She just started freaking out, like ‘Mom, there’s a shark in the water,’ Gouveia said in a subsequent Good Morning America interview.
Realizing what had happened, Gouveia said she ‘dropped everything’ and ran up to Rezentes, but still failed to spot the shark.
‘I was looking for it, but couldn’t see it,’ she recounted in the KHON interview. ‘I didn’t realize it was actually a shark. That’s what shocked me.’
Experts say the shark in the video was likely a Blacktip shark, which feeds on bait fish. It is not uncommon for them to swim in shallow waters, especially when the weather starts to get warmer, and bait fish start to migrate.
It was unlikely the shark was targeting Rezentes, experts told KHON. Blacktips are generally timid around humans, but can behave aggressively if they come into contact with people while hunting.
Rezentes and her mother, Sheri Gouveia, frequent the beach almost every other weekend – and say they’re glad the encounter with the shark didn’t cause any injuries
Gouveia, right, filmed the incident, thinking she was just filming Rezentes enjoying a day at the beach. When she realized what had happened, she told Good Morning America, she ‘dropped everything’ and ran to her daughter
Experts have identified the shark in the video as a blacktip shark, which swims in shallow waters to catch bait fish as they migrate in the warmer weather
‘I’m just so glad that she left there that day with all 10 fingers on two hands,’ Gouveia said in the GMA interview, noting to KHON that she and Rezentes go to the beach there almost every other weekend.
‘I guess there really are angels looking over my angel.’
Experts say the best thing to do if you see a shark is to get out of the water and give the shark its space. If that is impossible – they also advice ‘facing up’ to the shark and punching it on the nose.
In 2020, there were 129 shark attack reports, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History. 57 of which were unprovoked attacks and 39 of which were provoked attacks.
Of the remaining 33 cases, six involved bites to boats, one involved a shark-inflicted post-mortem bite, and one case involved a diver in a public aquarium. Three cases were regarded as “doubtful,” or incidents that likely did not involve a shark, including one attributed to a stingray, one attributed to an eel and one attributed to a large bony fish.
Figures show 13 of those attacks were fatal, with 10 of those deadly attacks reportedly unprovoked.
In six cases, a shark-human interaction was confirmed, but the nature of the incident was unclear with the available data and an additional 16 cases could not be confirmed as a shark-human interaction.
