A man has described the moment a shark bit him “ferociously” and tried to drown him before spitting him out.

Steve Bruemmer was swimming off Lovers Point Beach near Monterey, California, on 22 June when he was attacked.

He said he was swimming on “a beautiful day” with “no wind” and was “just gliding through the water looking at the seagrasses and the sea stars”, unaware of what was about to happen.

“I was about 150 yards from being done near the beach when just wham!” he recalled.

“I don’t even know exactly what happened but well it turns out I was bit ferociously by a shark right across my thighs and my abdomen and it grabbed me and pulled me up and then dove me down in the water.”

He added: “Then of course it spit me out, I’m not a seal, it’s looking for a seal, we’re not their food.

“It spit me out and it was looking at me right next to me and I thought it could bite me again so I pushed it with my hand and I kicked at it with my foot and it left.

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“I got myself back to the surface and started yelling for help and that’s when all my luck changed, really unlucky that the shark bit me, they don’t want people.”

He thanked two paddleboarders, one a nurse and the other a police officer, who veered over to him and the officer called 911.

He said a surfer brought another surfboard and the three of them loaded him onto it and pulled him to the beach.

“Heroes. How do you get in the bloody water with maybe a shark circling beneath you to save a stranger?”

Mr Bruemmer was taken to hospital, where doctors repaired his thighs so that he might walk again.

Drone patrol

It comes as authorities deployed a drone to monitor the waters around a popular beach in Long Island, New York, after three people were injured by shark bites this month.

The drones will be used to search for sharks offshore, Suffolk County executive Steve Bellone said.

The large drone being used can house a spotlight and a speaker to broadcast messages, and the department uses smaller drones that provide thermal imaging and have high-definition video.

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