WET & WILD : Shark Attack Stirs Memory of a Close Call

Harry Ingram watched the shark bearing down on him. This, he thought, is the “great white death.”

But, miraculously, he survived. It was an attack that, although leaving him without serious injury, has been talked about in diving circles since and even described in a 1985 book called “Last of the Blue Water Hunters.”

“For two years afterward, every time I closed my eyes, my heartbeat would skyrocket,” said Ingram, 46, who owns a boat repair business in El Toro.

Ingram’s heart-stopping experience occurred 10 years ago off Baja California. But its memory was vividly brought back by the recent grisly discovery in San Diego of a young woman apparently chomped to death by a great white off Point Loma.

Ingram was luckier: Rather than bringing him death, the attack turned out to be a seminal experience that changed his view of life.

It began late one murky afternoon when Ingram, an experienced spear fisherman, was diving with several friends from a boat near Guadalupe Island. Like many serious spear fishermen, they were not using scuba tanks, preferring instead to hold their breath.

Floating face down, the father of two suddenly saw what appeared to be “a large white reef kind of shimmering in the water” beneath him. “Only I looked at it and it was moving. It was a very large white shark, and it was coming up toward me.”

Ingram later estimated the length of the animal at 15 to 17 feet.

Raising his head out of the water long enough to yell, “Shark!” he swung his gun around and aimed it while the shark closed in. “Unfortunately, when you’re in the water with an animal that size, it usually makes most of the decisions, and this one decided to attack,” Ingram said.

In a split second, the shark closed in on the diver from 25 feet away. At the moment of impact, Ingram fired his spear into the fish’s head. Then he stiffened as it burrowed under his left arm and lifted him out of the water up to his waist. Falling over the shark’s back, the diver did a 360-degree midair turn before sinking with his assailant back into the ocean.

The shark retreated, towing Ingram’s spear and gun out to sea. And the crew of divers--convinced that their buddy had been bitten in half--launched a chase boat to retrieve the remains.

“They told me later that they thought they were just coming out to pick up the pieces and kept thinking of what they would tell my wife,” Ingram said. “I thought the same thing. I kept looking at my arms and legs; I just couldn’t believe I was still all there.”

Ingram swam away with only a bruised left arm “and the mental scars.”

If he hadn’t gotten back into the water almost immediately, he now believes, he probably never would have gone in again.

“If you think about sharks, they’re going to swim into your mind, and you can’t dive,” he said. “I swim a lot now looking behind me. I’ve had days since then when I’ve had to get back on the boat.”

But the experience also helped him clarify his values.

“The one thought that would not leave my mind as I got back onto the boat was how I didn’t want to leave my wife and children,” Ingram said. “I guess what’s really important is what really sticks there.”

And he has some advice for others who may encounter sharks: If you have a spear gun and the animal is within range, don’t hesitate to shoot it,” he said.

If you don’t have a spear gun, do the next best thing: Yell your head off.

Sound carries long distances underwater, Ingram said.

“They’re not used to hearing that, and it will scare them off.”