A swimmer who survived a shark bite off a Southern California beach last month returned to the water Saturday for his first swim after the incident.
Fifty-year-old Lomita resident Steve Robles swam from Hermosa Pier to Manhattan Beach and back in a 55-minute trip, according to Robles' assistant.
The last time Robles was swimming was the morning of July 5 near Manhattan Beach Pier, where a seven-foot white shark caught on a fishing line bit him under his arm.
"You could feel the whole body shaking with the shark, the whole thing trying to gnaw in at me," the long-distance swimmer told NBC4 in July.
Robles managed to pry the shark off his body before he was rescued by a paddleboarder and taken to the hospital.
He sustained chest lacerations and a broken artery in his thumb and spent eight hours in the emergency room.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
Lifeguards said it was the first time over 100 years that someone had been bitten by a shark in LA County.
Robles said in July he planned to return to the ocean, but during the shark bite he thought he was going to die.
"For just a second I thought this was it," he said.
