This is the astonishing moment a ‘shark whisperer’ teaches people how to survive a shark attack – by being BITTEN.
Brave Riccardo Sturla Avogadri, 49, has been working with the predators for 30 years, and pioneered the ‘relax immobility’ technique to hypnotise them.
But on a recent dive off the coast of Grand Bahama Island, the marine biologist demonstrated his techniques for surviving an attack by the sharp-toothed creatures.
The remarkable footage and photos show the three lemon sharks circling around the expert.
Shocked onlookers captured the moment he appears to provoke the animals by teasing them with food, causing them to lock their jaws around his arm.
Terrifying photos appear to show him wrestling with one of the sharks – but escaping relatively unscathed thanks to his survival techniques.
The moment was captured by stunned underwater photographer Troy Iloski, 49, who said the diver uses his elbow to stave off any real damage.
The engineer from Haskell, New Jersey, USA, said: “Riccardo Sturla Avogadry is a highly experienced shark expert trainer.
“Riccardo is demonstrating to a group of students how to act in a emergency situation with a sharks.
“Sharks use exploratory bites first to see what the object is made of.
“I as a photographer I have a big camera on the front of me and I use it as a shield to push away the feisty sharks.
“Using the elbow to push the shark away in a emergency situation is a common way to do it because is much harder for a shark to bite through three big arm bones at once.
“You never stick your hand out to push a biting shark away because hand bones are small and soft.
“Riccardo was not wearing chain mill armour suit and he got few light flesh wounds on his arms.
“The sharks are lemon sharks and the shark on the right is a male shark who is protecting and showing off on the front of the bunch of female lemon sharks.
“Male sharks are much more feisty because the high testosterone level.”
The stunning footage was taken during a dive at Tiger Beach, 20 miles West of Grand Bahama Island, in April.
Avogadri is the president and the owner of the Shark Academy of Italy.
