Can I Survive a Shark Attack by Gouging Out Its Eyes?

Published Jul 15, 2008, 8:24 PM

Although it can be intimidating, a shark is not invulnerable. Punching its nose, gouging its eyes, or grabbing its gills can stun the shark and give victims a chance to escape. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about shark attacks.

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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know? From how Stuff Works dot Com? Brought to you by consumer Guy at Automotive we make carbine easier. Hello, Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and staff writer here at how Stuff Works dot Com. With me is fellow staff writer Charles Chuck Bryant. We call him Chuck. We know him and love him as Chuck. We think pretty highly Chuck. How you doing, Chuck? Good? Um good, ul Hold on, I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing. What is that from? Is it from? Is it from Tremors? No, it's not from the awesome Fred Ward movie Tremors? Is it another fred Board movie? Maybe Uncommon Valor? No Remo williams now, huh, I'm just stumped. What is it? It's from Jaws. That's right, that's right, yes, and you know what I have seen Jaws. It means that we're talking about sharks. You want to talk about sharks? Yea, let's talking about sharks and more specifically, what you can do if you get attacked by a shark. What can you do? I mean, I imagine like just lay there and you know, bleed to death. That's what I always planned on doing. That's one I know you you have you professed to have a black belt and running away, but swimming away is not quite the same thing, my friend. I think the best advice you can give is to to try and hit the shark in the nose, grab the shark by the gills, or polkas shark in the eyes. I'll curly from the three stooges. Yeah, except I don't know if you can get your fingers across both sides actually, which is cheating. It is cheating. But all of those three things could have an effect on on making the shark leave for a couple of reasons. I know you want to talk a little bit about the receptors and the shark's nose. How do you know that we're in sync that way? Okay, we're sympatico right, all right, So there's this thing in the sharks nose. It's basically in the shark's nose um the area of it called the ampuleae of Lorenzi, right, which you can order with a side of sconge ly exactly, and you're all set and fat and happy and you should probably wear the napkin in your shirt during that meal. Right. So, Um, basically, what what this is is, it's a series of these little pores than they're jelly filled, and they have little hairs in them, and it's a sharks electrical receptors. Sharks pick up very very faint um electrical impulses put out by like living things. Um. They movement creates electricity, that kind of thing, and the shark can it's one of the sharks senses. It's a sense that we lack that a shark has, right, and that's probably a reason why they've been around for hundreds of millions of years and we haven't precisely, Yeah, and uh, they haven't changed that much, have they now? They haven't. They used to be a lot bigger. The the megala what was it called, I think of megalo don. He was like a great white but three times a size, like sixty ft long. Perhaps that's unsettling. Yeah, yeah, so but apparently, and I'm not sure if this would have been the same case with the megalodon. But you if you punch a shark in these pores, the Amfula Lorenzi, Um, it will it be tantam out to basically punching you in your soul? Right, I mean, if you could, if you could detect maybe punching you in your um, your your fillings, your mental fillings, in your teeth while you were, you know, chewing aluminum foil, I imagine would be something like that that will get a shark's attention, will basically say back off, pal, right. And there's a good chance that if you get ahold of gills or you punch them in the nose like that, if you're able to do this, that's the problem we talked about, if you're able to have the wherewithal while you're being attacked by a shark and taking in salt water and possibly having a foot ripped off, that you can bring it all together and say, let me go find that I or that gill, or even make a fist for that matter. Right. Um, it kind of makes me wonder if something that another part on another podcast we talked about, um, hysterical strength, if that comes into play where you're just totally focused and just raining blows upon some poor sharks thing, never come back, never come back. That kind of yeah, like Cluver Lang and Rocky three just go off on the shark's nose that much. Yeah. Um, I don't know if that would happen. I wouldn't want to know. And there are some considerations to actually fighting a shark. We also want to say that our our esteemed colleague Kristin Conger wrote this article and she did. She she knows her stuff. She actually went in the shark fighter. Yeah, um, Kristen. Kristen points out that when you're going for shark's gills or its eyes, you're also simultaneously presenting your arm, going hey, shark, check it out, you want this, take it? And the flailing limb is kind of what they're attracted to in the first place and something they can easily grab hold of. But I know the MythBusters on the Discovery Channel tested this out by putting a sort of a rock'am sock 'em robot that they made in a outside of a shark's cage, and this thing, would you know, they attracted the shark and it would punch the sky in the nose, which was kind of punched the shark and it was kind of cool, but I also kind of felt bad for the shark because shark abuse. Yeah, they're just trying to eat you know, they don't mean anything. I know, I mean most most shark shark attacks are you know, mistaken identity, right stake in identity and sharks. Some sharks are threatened because of overfishing and by catch when they catch sharks when they don't mean to. And uh, it's you know, we need to protect the sharks, not not go around punching them in the face. So, now that you know this is very similar to martial arts. You never start a fight with a shark, but if a shark starts a fight with you, you can finish it. You should probably brush up a little more and read Can I survive a shark attack by gouging out its eyes? On how stuff works dot com shop for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you

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