ITV star '30 seconds from death' after shark ripped hand and hamstring off
Paul de Gelder nearly died in 2009 when a bull shark attacked him in Sydney Harbour - now he's instructing the stars in diving for new series Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters
An expert teaching the celebs to dive in ITV's upcoming series Shark! was mauled by a bull shark in 2009, which left him '30 seconds from death.' Aussie Paul de Gelder, 48, was subjected to a frenzied eight-second attack in Sydney Harbour during a training exercise with the Navy, which left him in 'total agony' as his right hand was bitten off and his hamstring was ripped out of his leg.
Afterwards, a doctor told him that his life had been saved by one of the Navy team, who pinched closed the artery in his leg to stem the blood flow.
De Gelder - presenter of Discovery's Shark Week - had been terrified of sharks since boyhood, but having researched them since the attack 15 years ago, is now dedicated to their conservation.
He believes the bull shark went for him because a corpse had been found in the harbour the previous day - and it thought he was another one and an easy meal.
Announcing his involvement in Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters, de Gelder posted a picture of Lenny Henry and the rest of the reality recruits, saying: 'Did a little thing with a bunch of Brits. It was an amazing experience meeting and working with this group of legends.'
Remembering his encounter with the bull shark, he has previously told how his life flashed before his eyes as he felt unimaginable pain. 'The shark grabbed me by my right hand and the back of my right leg in the same bite. It dragged me underwater and started thrashing me about. I tried to fight it off, but it had my hand, so I couldn't do anything with it,' he explained in an interview.
As a schoolboy, he'd been taught to hit a shark in the eye in the event of being bitten, but he said: 'My left hand couldn't reach the shark's eye, and when I tried to punch it in the nose, it started shaking me. The pain was just so all-encompassing that the fight just went out of me. I was a rag doll in this monster's mouth while getting thrashed around underwater. I was in total agony and drowning at the same time.'
Despite his terrible injuries, when the shark suddenly released him, he seized his chance to escape. 'I popped to the surface. That's when I realised I had survived this nightmare encounter. I started to swim back to my safety boat, and I took a stroke with my right arm, only to realise my hand wasn't there. My arm ended at the end of my wetsuit.'
De Gelder's medical training kicked in, and he did what he could to slow the bleeding from his hand by holding it high as he swam towards the boat, which was coming for him. 'At that point, I had no clue that my whole hamstring was gone and that I had an arterial bleed from my leg.'
He passed out once pulled onto the boat by his colleagues and, fearing he'd gone into cardiac arrest, one of them straddled him to perform CPR to keep his heart going while another acted to stem the bleeding. 'One of my doctors said if one of my mates hadn't reached into my leg to pinch close the artery, I would've died within 30 seconds," he has recalled.
De Gelder, who is married and now lives in Los Angeles, spent nine weeks in hospital and astonishingly returned to military training six months later but a couple of years on he'd had enough. 'I was teaching people to do this thing that I love without ever getting to do it myself, and it was torture,' he explained.
Interest in what he'd been through remained high however, and a few years later a broadcaster invited him on a trip to Fiji where he'd come face to face with the very species of shark that maimed him.
He says that at the time he saw it as the chance for a free holiday, but the experience actually led to him leaving the Navy and starting a new career as a conservationist after spending time with 150 bull sharks, which affected his whole outlook.
'Being eaten alive may have changed my body, but spending time with these creatures is what really altered my mind,' he explained.
It helped him overcome his fear of public speaking and by 2014 he had moved to Los Angeles to work on Shark Week for Discovery. He now takes celebs and regular people to meet sharks in their natural habitat. 'I've introduced sharks to lots of different people and every time they come out of the water, they say it has shifted something inside them.'
De Gelder is now described as an 'unconventional conservationist' and his aim is to stop the widespread slaughter of sharks, which sees 100 million killed annually - a figure which he believes doubles when unofficial, unregulated and illegal activities are included. The shark population is estimated to have dropped by 70% since 1970, the start of the decade in which Jaws was released. 'If you did to land-based wildlife what we do to sharks, you'd go to jail for it, no question,' he said in a recent interview. 'But because it's unseen, out there in the deep blue sea, it goes unnoticed.'
He wants to do everything he can to help save sharks, which is why he jumped at the chance to appear in the new ITV series, which starts next month and also stars Countdown's Rachel Riley, McFly's Dougie Poynter and Call the Midwife's H elen George. 'I'm adamant about speaking up for this animal that doesn't have a voice, it doesn't scream when you torture it, and so it's somehow looked upon as less,' he has explained. 'They feel, they suffer, and they need our help.'
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