Dylan McWilliams has now achieved the trifecta of fighting off dangerous animals.
The Colorado man was bitten by a shark in Hawaii this week, suffering cuts to his leg, but nothing life-threatening. As the New York Post noted, it was far from the first brush with a dangerous animal for McWilliams; he had also been attacked by a black bear and bitten by a rattlesnake within the last four years.
McWilliams was swimming near Poipu in Hawaii this week when a shark sliced into his leg. As the 20-year-old told Hawaii News Now , the bite itself wasn’t too bad, but he was worried the fresh blood in the water would attract more sharks as he made his way back to shore.
McWilliams did eventually make it back to safety, and was taken to a nearby hospital where — after a one-hour wait to be seen — he was stitched up and sent on his way, the report noted. The beach was temporarily closed, but later re-opened.
The shark attack came just seven months after McWilliams had to fight off an attack from a 300-pound black bear while he was camping with friends.
“The bear grabbed the back of my head and started pulling me and I was fighting back as best as I could,” he told Hawaii News Now . “It dropped me and stomped on me a little bit, and I was able to get back to the group and they scared it away.”
Close to four years before that, McWilliams was bitten by a rattlesnake while on a camping trip to Utah. That incident wasn’t as harrowing, the New York Post reported, as he only took in a small amount of venom and was briefly ill afterward.
The odds of all three of those incidents happening seems to be astronomical. As The Wildlife Museum noted, the odds of being attacked by a shark are 1-in-3.7 million. The odds of being attacked by a bear, National Geographic noted, are about 1-in-2.1 million. Being bitten by a snake is not quite so rare; CDC statistics show that the odds are about 1-in-38,000. Taken altogether, the odds of all three happening to the same person would be nearly impossible.
Meet the man who’s survived a snake, bear and shark attack https://t.co/MU82fwjqVh
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) April 22, 2018
Dylan McWilliams told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he is keeping some perspective about his animal attacks.
“I’m either really lucky or really unlucky,” he said.
