Brett Connellan: Surfer shares his incredible recovery after shark ate 'three-quarters of his thigh'
NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA: In 2016, Brett Connellan was surfing along the New South Wales coastline when a freak incident changed the up-and-coming ripper's life forever. Out of the blue, a massive Great White Shark attacked the then 22-year-old, mauling him severely and taking out three-quarters of his thigh.
Connellan, who nearly bled to death and underwent a series of surgeries, was told he might never walk again. However, seven years after the traumatic experience, the athlete is back in the water and ready to share his story with the world in a new documentary called 'Attacking Life'. The film recounts the terrifying scenes during and after the savage attack when Connellan's pal Joel Tryst brought him to shore on his surfboard.
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"Having been told that failure isn’t to aim high and miss, but to aim low and hit, Attacking Life follows Brett as he tests the boundaries of possibility - from surfing the big, blue barrels of Cloudbreak in Fiji, to paddling across the Kai’wi Channel (or ‘channel of bones’) between the islands of Moloka’i and Oahu in Hawaii," reads the description alongside the trailer for 'Attacking Life'. "Outshining these physical feats, however, is Brett’s renewed mindset - one that sees him share his experience to better the lives of others."
'I didn't see it coming'
Connellan recalled how there was no hint of danger when he stepped into the water seven years ago on a fateful evening in Kiama on NSW's south coast. However, the surfer's paddle in the ocean off Bombo Beach ended up almost killing him when a shark emerged out of the blue and chomped down on his thigh. "A lot of people ask me - did you see it coming?" Connellan said during an appearance on Weekend Today. "Could you see the fin coming through the water? I say sharks are incredibly good at what they do. I didn't see it coming." He added, "For how quick the moment was, it was also so slow."
Trist's wife Agie, a nurse by profession, used the leg rope from her surfboard as a tourniquet to stop the blood loss. "There was a lot of luck on the beach and that extended to the recovery having the right people around me the whole way through," Connellan said. "It's a bit unknown when you lose three-quarters of your left quad and we didn't know what the long-term effects would be." He said doctors told him he may never walk again owing to the critical injuries to his leg. Surgeons reportedly used his lateral muscle to cover the exposed bone and ensure he didn't need an amputation.
Returning to the ocean
Connellan managed to defy all odds and re-learned to walk with his injuries. The athlete said his love of surfing meant it was only a matter of time before he would return to the water. "For me, the harder thing about going back in the water was an unknown of what I was going to surf like," he explained. "Surfing was a big part of my life and I didn't know what that end goal was going to look like and what that would mean for me. It's not something that you can give up. It's not too much about chasing the dream of becoming a professional surfer, I do it more because I love it now."
Connellan now hopes his documentary will help inspire others to overcome hurdles in their own lives, no matter how big they are. "For me, I am just a regular person that something irregular happened to," he said. "We will have our own version of a shark attack and I want to say if my story can get people to look at their own experiences in a different way and they can use themselves as an inspiration when they encounter a hurdle in life, that would be the goal for me," the surfer added.
