A 22-year-old Henry County resident is now facing a long road to recovery after a terrifying encounter in the waters off Daytona Beach, Florida, left him with serious leg injuries — sustained while protecting his pregnant fiancée.
Jacorey High was wading through shallow water with his fiancée on Saturday evening when the calm was suddenly broken. Without warning, a shark clamped down on his leg, and within seconds, instinct took over.
“I realized right away it was a shark because of the way it bit down on my foot, but I was more worried about getting my fiancé out of the water,” High recalled.
The animal didn’t stop there. As High tried to move away, it lunged toward his arm, forcing him to shove it back before it went for his other leg. He described the creature as grey-toned and roughly the length of his own leg and waist combined — a detail that gives a chilling sense of just how close the encounter was.
It wasn’t until he made it out of the water that the true severity of his injuries became clear. Blood was pouring from his foot, and he was quickly rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors performed emergency surgery.
“I didn’t really feel it until I got to the hospital when they started giving me medicine for it,” High said, reflecting on the adrenaline that had masked his pain in the moment.
Doctors have warned that the road ahead won’t be easy — his recovery is expected to take close to three months. Still, High’s biggest worry isn’t the pain, but whether he’ll be able to return to work once he’s healed.
“Hoping that it didn’t really mess up anything important in my foot,” he said.
Despite the trauma, High says he’s simply thankful to have survived — and even more so, that his fiancée and unborn child remained unharmed.
Experts note that such unprovoked attacks are extremely rare, with only a few dozen reported globally each year — making this encounter all the more shocking.
What remains unknown: Whether High suffered any lasting damage to his foot, and the exact species of shark responsible, have yet to be confirmed by officials.