Surfer Mick Fanning says people mock him at the beach shouting ‘Shark! Shark!’ – even though he’s battling PTSD from being attacked by one
It’s been four years since surfing legend Mick Fanning had a terrifying encounter with a great white shark.
And while the 39-year-old has worked hard to deal with the mental anguish that came after the incident, his mates haven’t made the healing process easy.
Speaking to The Kyle and Jackie O Show on Thursday, Mick admitted his surfing buddies sometimes prank him by pretending there’s a shark in the water.
‘I freak out’: Mick Fanning has admitted his friends sometimes mock him at the beach by shouting ‘Shark! Shark!’ – even though he’s battling PTSD after his 2015 shark attack
‘It still took me about a year or so to get through my PTSD. Even still, I’m very wary of what’s in the ocean. People splash behind me, I freak out. My mates do it to me all the time,’ he explained.
Radio host Kyle Sandilands asked: ‘Does anyone ever yell “Shark! Shark!” when you’re out there? And do you think, listen, don’t do that?’
‘Yeah there’s a few here that do that,’ Mick replied dryly.
‘I had to go through and deal with things in my own personal life’: Earlier in the interview, Mick spoke about the long healing process following the shark attack, admitting it took him ‘a year or so’ to get through his post-traumatic stress disorder
Earlier in the interview, Mick spoke about the long healing process following the shark attack, admitting it took him ‘a year or so’ to get through his post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘I had to go through and deal with things in my own personal life to make sure I was in a spot where I was comfortable with going surfing again,’ he said.
It comes after Mick told The Australian that he still ‘freaks’ out whenever somebody splashes behind him in the water.
Terrifying: Mick was four minutes into the JBay Open surf event in South Africa on July 19, 2015, when a six-metre shark circled him
‘I mean, it’s like I’m in the actual position I was in, it’s a reality dream,’ the three-time world champion said.
‘You sort of learn your body can do so many things to make things real and not real and I just had to learn, “Okay, that moment’s been done. It’s not real. These dreams are just coming back.”‘
Mick was four minutes into the JBay Open surf event in South Africa on July 19, 2015, when a six-metre shark circled him.
‘I thought I was going to die’: He was able to survive by kicking and punching the shark
He managed to survive by kicking and punching the shark in the nose.
‘I thought I was going to die. I guess everyone watching on from the beach that day, and on the live broadcast all over the world, thought the exact same thing,’ he told Stellar in April 2019.
Meanwhile, Mick is on the promotional trail for his National Geographic documentary Save This Shark, which premieres on September 15.
The two-part series follows Mick as he conquers his fear of the animal by exploring shark conservation and new technologies helping humans and sharks safely co-exist.
‘It was a really personal journey for me to be able to reconnect with sharks in this way,’ Mick said in a statement.
‘It was a really personal journey for me to be able to reconnect with sharks in this way’: Mick is on the promotional trail for his National Geographic documentary Save This Shark