This shark attack was no joke.
A teenage surfer told The Post that he had just made a wisecrack to a friend about getting shark bitten in the ocean off Long Island, when one of the increasingly dangerous sea creatures swam up and chomped his right foot.
“I felt something on my foot like a bear trap, just get me from below,” Max Haynes, 16, of Islip, said, recalling the vicious mauling he suffered Wednesday.
“It went straight for my foot and clamped down. It felt like it broke my foot.”
Haynes — who has become the sixth shark attack victim in Long Island waters in three weeks — was catching waves with his friend, James, roughly 45 feet from the shoreline at Kismet Beach on Fire Island when the shark attacked, he said.
He kicked free from the six-foot man-eater and rushed to shore frantically.
Max Haynes was bitten by a shark on Long Island while surfing. Dennis A. Clark
Shark attacks have been on the rise off of the Long Island coast. JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images“I was thinking, I gotta get out of here right now. I started paddling and was like, ‘James, you better follow me if you want to get out of here alive,’” said Haynes, a junior lifeguard who works at Jones Beach.
“It held on for 3 seconds. I was kicking and it decided to let me go. It realized I wasn’t an easy target,” he said.
When the teens got to dry land, his pal initially didn’t believe that he’d been attacked by a shark — until he saw blood gushing from a 4-inch wound on his right foot, Haynes said.
“There’s a good sized gash under my toe. Luckily it didn’t get anything worse,” said Haynes, a soon-to-be junior at Islip High School. “I think I’m lucky.”
Moments before the attack, the high schoolers had been joking around about the rash of recent shark bite incidents in the area.
“We were flipping each other off the board, and laughing. Thirty seconds later, I get chomped on. It was pretty crazy,” he said.
At least five other people — lifeguards, tourists and surfers among them — have been bitten by sharks in non-fatal incidents off Long Island since June 30.
Hanyes said he was aware of the attacks but weighed the chances of serious injury against the good surfing conditions, and decided to hang ten anyway.
“It was risk vs. reward,” he said. “I like surfing a lot…It’s [the sharks’] home, not mine,” he said, adding the gravity of the attack didn’t sink in until later.
The 16-year-old is the sixth shark attack on Long Island in the past three weeks. Dennis A. Clark
Haynes told The Post that the shark held on for three seconds before letting go. Dennis A. Clark“I was so pumped up on adrenaline it didn’t really hit me until I was in the ambulance,” he said.
Haynes said he’s on medication for pain and expects his bandaged foot to be healed in a few weeks, at which point he’ll hit the water again.
“I’m going back in as soon as I can,” he said.
