12:16 PM PST on Monday, December 26, 2005

By ANTONIA GIEDWOYN, kgw.com Staff

SEASIDE, Ore. -- A Seaside man survived a shark attack on Christmas Eve by punching a 10-foot great white in the nose.

KGW

Brian Anderson describes the Christmas Eve shark attack from his home, where he is recuperating.

The shark ripped into 36-year-old Brian Anderson's ankle and calf while Anderson was surfing off the northern Oregon coast Saturday, said Joe Dotson, chief of the Seaside Fire Department.

"It just grabbed my foot... and then I saw it, the fish right there on my right side, and seconds later the nose was up, out, looking at me and I got a chance just to punch the thing in the nose to get it to let go," Anderson said.

Anderson remembers punching the shark really hard at least one time, possible two, before it finally released him. He said he learned from television shows including the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" that a shark's nose is its most sensitive area.

"It was so fast... three or four seconds," Anderson said.

By then he was numb and bloody and struggling to reach shore.

His friends, who were surfing nearby, carried him to safety. An ambulance drove Anderson — who was "conscious, alert and smiling" — to Providence Seaside Hospital, Dotson said.

KGW

Shark attack survivor Brian Anderson with his surfboard.

"There was quite a bit of blood, but he was not entered into the trauma center," Dotson said.

The bites were only puncture wounds, but some reached to the bone. Nursing supervisor Greg Bench said the surfer's condition was stable.

Anderson returned home, where he is recuperating, on Saturday night after being released from the hospital with 70 stitches on his leg. His tattered wetsuit lies on deck outside his family's house.

He had been surfing for about an hour and a half at a popular surfing spot near Tillamook Head when he was attacked in the early afternoon.

Anderson, who hopes to open a surfboard manufacturing shop in Gearhart, said he plans to keep surfing off the Coast and that he's grateful to be spending Christmas with his family.

"An angel was watching out for me for sure," he said.

There were no signs of the shark in the hours after the bite, according to Dotson.

"I think everybody got out of the water," Dotson said. "He [the shark] didn't get seconds."

Dotson, who has been with the department for 26 years, said it's the first shark attack off Seaside in his time there.

He said a more severe shark attack happened off Cannon Beach — a few miles south — 20 to 25 years ago.

(KGW reporter Vince Patton and The Associated Press also contributed to this article.)