A Cuban man who last Monday suffered a severe shark bite while fishing with his children in the Florida Keys is recovering satisfactorily, although he remains hospitalized in Miami.
José Ángel Abreu, 37 years old and resident of Opa-locka, showed the wounds inflicted on him by the shark on the right side of his chest, and his left leg and arm.
From Jackson Memorial South, where he will have to stay longer, he told Local 10 that he was spearfishing with a friend who helped him. They were both heading back to the boat when the shark followed them.
"You don't have time to feel anything, everything goes too fast," he said.
Despite the pain he was feeling, Abreu had the composure to calm his distressed children.
"My children were saying to me, 'Dad, don't die, don't die.' And I tell them not to worry," he explained.
The Cuban was spearfishing on a reef off the coast of Key West when he was attacked on Monday afternoon. He was brought to shore in Stock Island shortly thereafter and airlifted to the hospital.
He never lost consciousness, neither while the boat was returning to the marina, nor when they took him away in a medical helicopter.
"Probably I am here because of my friend. He saved my life," he emphasized.
In statements to Telemundo 51, he emphasized excitedly that he thought he was going to die and that the only thing he could do was hold the animal's mouth shut.
"I said to myself, well, okay, I'm going to die. What's left for me is to grab it, endure it, and put up a fight, all the strength that I can, because already..." he recounted.
That happened in a second, the shark came up to me, with its mouth wide open. All I could do was hold its mouth. I don't remember if it was with this hand or with this one, whatever, I held its mouth and it was coming towards me like this, with its mouth here," he explained while showing the parts of the body where the shark bit him.
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