Diver Reveals How Great White Shark ‘Grinned’ at Him During Terrifying 10-Minute Encounter

A diver is feeling lucky after surviving a frightening run-in with a great white shark off Western Australia.

Tanveer Dhillon, 39, said he came face-to-face with the shark while diving near Ocean Reef in Perth on Sunday, Dec. 21. According to 7News Australia, the animal appeared just meters below the surface, cornered him and rammed him into a sandbank.

“[I was] pushed and shoved into the ground. My first instinct was ‘why is my dive buddy kicking me?’ So I turned around and when I saw that it was not a person, it was a shark — it was sheer panic,” Dhillon told 7News Australia.

“I see a great white grinning straight at me … my heart was in my mouth,” he added.

Dhillon said the shark then circled him for about 10 minutes as the oxygen in his tank ran low, before eventually swimming away.

“I did say a prayer, saying, ‘If I get out of this situation, I’m never gonna put myself in this position again,’ because you’re completely helpless,” Dhillon told 7News Australia.

Once the shark disappeared, he alerted other divers and urged them to return to their boat, per the outlet.

Dhillon believes he avoided an attack by staying calm and not making sudden movements underwater.

“If I would have done the knee-jerk reaction and gone straight for the surface, I feel fairly confident it would have gone for me,” he said.

He added that the incident hasn’t ended his interest in diving, though he may take a break while he processes what happened. “I do need more time to process,” he said.

In the aftermath, Dhillon said the experience reinforced a message he hopes others remember when entering the ocean.

“This is the shark’s territory and we are just visitors over there and understanding that, we have to be mindful of that,” he added.

The incident came amid other recent shark-related reports. One day later, triathlete Erica Fox, 55, went missing off Lovers Point in Pacific Grove, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 21. The experienced ocean swimmer, who co-created the ocean swim group the Kelp Krawlers, was swimming with a group of 15 others when she is believed to have been attacked by a shark.

An onlooker told local authorities they saw splashing near Fox when she disappeared, CBS San Francisco reported. Another witness said they saw a “large splash,” per SFGATE.

Separately, Shark Watch South Australia said in a Facebook post on Tuesday, Nov. 4, that Lee Berryman had been bitten by a great white shark off Kangaroo Island, Australia, on Oct. 7. Berryman — whose surfboard was also broken — initially believed he was bitten by a Bronze Whaler and later required more than 50 stitches, according to the post.