Usually when you’re posing for a picture you don’t have your defenses up, unless you’re really scared of cameras. Dan Carlin learned the hard way that sometimes maybe you should.
Man nearly drowned by sea lion while posing for a picture
What Trish hadn’t seen was that at the moment she said “Smile!” a sea lion had leapt about 7ft out of the water to get the fish, and grabbed my left hand in the process. Sea lions have canine teeth, just like a dog. It dragged me headfirst into the water. I’d actually seen it out of the corner of my eye a split second before I felt the pain. It was big and had such strength. It pulled me straight down to the bottom of the bay, about 25-30ft. I was moving incredibly fast through the water. It whipped me back and forth five or six times. I thought, “Well, now you know how you are going to die.”
Lucky for Dan, he had experience with free-diving. He said the things he learned there saved his life.
Dan survived, but his story and the picture above are both crazy and terrifying cautionary tales for behavior around sea lions.
★★★
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