On a clear Sunday morning, Jeff Horton went surfing off of Kauai's North Shore at Pila'a Beach, surrounded by 10 other surfers.

Some of the surfers spotted a fin and a tail in the water, but no one got out. About 20 minutes later, at 11am, Horton, 25, was sitting upright with his feet dangling on each side of the board when he saw something dark moving around below him. And then it moved toward his left leg.



It was a tiger shark, and it bit into the board just as he pulled his leg back. The impact flipped him off the board and onto the 12-foot long shark.

“I was pretty scared,” Horton told the Garden Island. He grabbed on to the fin of the shark and was effectively riding it. “I started punching as hard as I could,” said Horton, a former boxer.

He says he punched the shark roughly eight times, but it was the final blow to the shark’s eye that sent the shark away.

“I thought it was do or die. I thought I was going to die for real,” Horton told KHON-TV.

Following the final blow, the shark let go of the board and flung Horton off its back and into the air. Horton got back on his board, stunned. With the help of another surfer, he caught a wave and paddled for the shore. The shark followed briefly, but then retreated for good. Horton escaped with just a few scratches, but his 7-foot board was left with an imprint of the shark's jaws.



Horton moved to Hawaii from the east coast two years ago and has been surfing almost every day since moving to the islands. Despite the close encounter with the tiger shark, Horton was back in the water catching waves at another beach on Kauai on Monday.