Warning: the footage is graphic.
File this under “things you didn’t think you’d ever see, or even think were possible”.
This nice family was minding their own business when they came upon a shark with some movement in its belly. Odd, considering the shark was very, very dead.
Someone determined that the shark might be pregnant and this amazing guy, name unknown, let’s call him the shark baby whisperer, manages to cut the shark open and deliver three squirming baby sharks.
HuffPost explains:
Beth and Lindsey Cordell were walking along the Georgia coast when they found a dead beached shark with a hook stuck in it, according to Barcroft Media. As a crowd gathered around them, the couple attempted to remove the hook. “We didn’t want anyone passing by to get hurt on it,” Lindsey Cordell said.
That’s when they noticed something moving inside the blacktip shark’s belly.
As seen in the footage below, which was originally uploaded to YouTube in May and filmed by the Cordell’s 13-year-old son, a man volunteered to help and began performing an impromptu C-section on the pregnant blacktip, giving her unborn shark pups a second chance at life.
Well, wow.
Here’s to the babies being viable and surviving to swim the seas for long, sharky lives.
Note: the original video has been made private on YouTube, but the video above shows some highlights. I watched the whole thing on Facebook in astonishment – I did not move for the entire video – while my husband yelled instructions at the guy as if it hadn’t happened months ago, in a whole other state. It’s really quite something.