A Florida surfer says he’s thankful to be alive after being attacked by a shark not once, but twice now in his lifetime in the same area.

Both bites happened in the same waters, on Bathtub Beach in Martin County, a decade apart.

Charter boat captain and former competitive surfer Cole Taschman said he was paddling just past the reef when what he thinks was shark 7 or 8 feet long hit him from behind.

He described the shark as a “beast” to NBC affiliated WPTV, and thought it was a tiger or bull shark.

“Both feet were in the shark’s mouth at once,” he said. “I looked back and I kind of got a glimpse of him, very wide nose, and I screamed… I was like, I’m dead.”

Taschman said his friends, also surfers, immediately came to his aid. His girlfriend even captured the dramatic moments from the shore.

“I got bit by a shark!” he yells in the video.

On the beach, his friends used their surf leashes to form a tourniquet and stop the bleeding as they raced to the nearest hospital.

From there, Taschman was transferred to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach.

“The injury from the shark was very impressive, like the lacerations from the shark teeth are almost as clean from the knives, the surgical steel, we use to do our surgeries,” one of the surgeons on his team said.

This incident, Taschman said, was much more serious than the first time he was bitten. He told WPTV that he has had two surgeries to repair three tendons and received 93 stitches. 

“The difference between a high school athlete and an Olympic athlete are the difference between the two bites–very different,” he said.

The first time was in 2013, when Taschman was just 16 years old.

“It just happens so quickly that it’s a big adrenaline rush and it’s a lot of shock, and you do just kind of have a moment where it’s like, ‘OK I’m dead,’” he said.

And even though the chances of ever being attacked by a shark, let alone twice, are extremely low, Taschman said he doesn’t feel unlucky.

“Don’t surf alone, and have your knowledge of what you’re doing. Know how to use a leash as a tourniquet, know how to be prepared to do these activities,” he said. “It’s proper prior planning, you know?”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – For two years Jacksonville won’t be home to the annual matchup between the Florida Gators and the Georgia Bulldogs as EverBank stadium undergoes renovations.

The game will be played in Atlanta in 2026 and Tampa in 2027.

Enrique Hinojosa, a Georgia fan, said the announcement was bittersweet.

“Not because of the locations just because it’s not RV City,” Hinojosa said. “The friends and family we made here over the years probably won’t reunite there. And what we do here you can’t do there. So we’ll probably skip out those two years.”

On another side, other people didn’t mind it.

“We’ll be in Atlanta at Mercedes Benz in 2026 and Tampa in 2027,” Randy Stone, a Georgia fan said.

“I started thinking how am I going to get my RV down there,” Richard Dean, a Florida Fan. “Where are we going to park the RV… “We’ll get there. We’ll figure it out.”

The games not being played in Jacksonville in 2026 and 2027 aren’t a first.

In 1994, the game was played in Gainesville, and in 1995 it was played in Athens.

Stone said he’s just glad the decision-makers chose a neutral site for 2026 and 2027.

“If they take campus to campus, I don’t think it’ll ever comeback to a neutral site,” Stone said.

This game is one that brings in a lot of money to our area.

According to Katie Mitura, chief marketing officer for Visit Jacksonville, the estimated economic impact the game had on our area in 2023 was nearly 38 million dollars.

Their chief marketing officer broke it down even further and said the direct cash spent, or money spent on things like hotels and other businesses was nearly 22 million dollars last year.

In 2022, the economic impact was nearly 40 million dollars.

While the direct cash spent was almost 23 million dollars.

The game not being here could mean a loss of money for the area.

News4JAX asked Visit Jacksonville if they had a statement about the game not being here and the potential loss of money for the area.

They said, in part. they are “really excited about the new stadium in 2028…and we are doing a lot of work to fill in the gap for the business holes during those years.“