A scary visitor crashed the party as Florida beachgoers enjoyed their July 4 holiday weekend.
The telltale dorsal fin of a large shark appeared among the swimmers Monday at Navarre Beach on the Florida panhandle near Pensacola.
The sighting prompted those in the water to quickly make a beeline for shore, while those watching from safety urged them to “Get out of the water!”
“Hurry! Hurry!” one person was heard saying on a video that has been making the rounds on social media and was shared by media outlets, including WOFL-TV in Orlando, Florida.
One person even exclaimed in frustration, “Good god, people!”
‘GET OUT OF THE WATER’: Shark spotted at popular Florida beach sends swimmers scrambling to shore. https://t.co/CwQORZnTXv pic.twitter.com/3bnTyKOXQc
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 6, 2023
“That sucker came close,” someone remarked.
At one point, the observers discovered the one thing worse than a shark fin gliding through the water: That was when the fin disappeared from the surface.
“Where did it go? Where did it go? There’s somebody still out there,” an onlooker worried aloud.
Experts assured WOFL that sharks in that area normally feed on fish and leave humans alone. But scary shark encounters can and do happen.
A 58-year-old Hawaiian man was bitten by a shark while surfing near Honolulu on Easter Sunday in April.
Mike Morita said he prayed but also shouted, cursed and struck the creature while his fellow surfers rushed to help him
“The water was red — with my blood,” he said. “I cannot believe how much courage my friends had.”
Not all such encounters have a happy ending.
In one recent case, a shark attacked and killed a swimmer in the Egyptian resort city of Hurghada as horrified onlookers looked on.
Video of that terrifying attack also circulated widely on the internet.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.