This article was originally published as "I Fought Off a Shark Attack" in the January 2007 issue of Cosmopolitan.

When my brother, Gary, introduced me to spearfishing in 2005, I was hooked instantly. I love the thrill of the sport and the excitement of chasing and catching your own dinner. Carrying a slender, 5-foot metal spear loaded in a rubber-and-plastic sling, you swim near the surface of the ocean and look down through the clear water for fish. When you see one, you swim to it, aim, and release the spear from the sling, bow-and-arrow style. If you get a hit, you swim as fast as you can after the spear, grab it, and haul it to the surface with the fish still on it. 

I've always been a strong swimmer, so I feel comfortable in the ocean. Still, I knew my newly adopted sport carried some risks, though I never expected to have such a close encounter with the jaws of death.

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Reef shark.

Swimming Targets

I moved to the Florida Keys a year and a half ago. Before that, I had spent six months backpacking with friends in New Zealand and was about to move to Australia to teach elementary school. Then Gary, who's 32, called and offered me a job running the swimming camps and clinics at the Race Club, a facility that he and my dad founded to train competitive swimmers. 

I thought to myself, Why not? I can move to Australia later. Gary and I spend a great deal of our day at the Race Club. But when we're not working, we pass lots of time out on our 38-foot boat. On June 30, 2006, Gary; his wife, Elizabeth; and I all had the morning off and decided to go out for a few hours of spearfishing. It was 9 a.m., and I loved the spontaneity of jumping right out of my bed and, soon after, into the boat. 

We took the boat 3 miles offshore, which is the distance that's required for spearfishing, and put down the anchor. Elizabeth made the decision to stay on deck and fish off the side; Gary and I put on our fins, masks, and snorkels. Then we jumped into the water with our spears in hand. The sun was bright, the water was warm and a brilliant blue, and we could see all the way to the ocean floor. 

We had spent about an hour swimming around, scanning the sea for dinner, when I spotted a snapper. Gary had already caught a grouper and put it in the boat, but this fish was a decent-size snapper—about a foot long and 7 pounds. Gary and I started heading in its direction, and as we did, we began seeing larger and larger fish. We were just so psyched—these fish were huge! Before we knew it, we were in 30-foot-deep water and about 200 yards out from the boat. That's a lot farther than we usually went, but we were like "All right! We're going to bring home a feast!" 

The Lure of Blood

Gary swam under the water and shot his spear at a big snapper. But the spear fell out and the fish took off, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Blood can attract sharks, but when fishing or diving in the Keys, we'd only ever seen docile nurse sharks. They had never bothered us though; we would just wait for them to pass by. 

I swam down to shoot a grouper and the same thing happened—the fish got off my spear and bolted. Finally, Gary speared an even bigger snapper—a meaty 12-pounder. He came up to the surface with the fish on his spear. It was awesome. My brother was treading water, holding up the speared fish to try to prevent as much blood as possible from dripping into the water. I wanted to get a fish of my own before we swam back to the boat together, so I dove under again. That's when I saw a shark swimming toward us. And it wasn't a nurse shark. 

Danger, Up Close

I was really freaked out. I immediately did a 180, went to the surface, and told my brother there was a shark coming. Gary put his mask in the water, popped up, and said, "Let's get out of here!" My heart was beating really fast, and adrenaline was pumping through me. I told Gary to drop the snapper. But he insisted we could make it back to the boat while he held it out of the water. He told me to get my spear ready and shoot it at anything that came toward us. 

As we swam hurriedly back to the boat, we started talking about the shark. I said I thought it was a mako, but Gary said it was a reef shark. Because I was so nervous, I was swimming very close to my brother, and I felt something bump my shoulder. 

I turned to apologize, thinking I'd run into him, and to my shock, found myself staring a second shark—a humongous 6-footer—right in the face. It had bumped into me and knocked the spear off the sling.

My basic instincts kicked in. I was completely focused on getting my sling and spear ready so that I would be able to defend myself. 

Meanwhile, the shark had come up between Gary's legs. He was kicking it as hard as he could, and after dropping the snapper, he started pounding the shark on its nose with his fists. 

Defying Death

I had my spear aimed right at them, but I didn't have a clear shot; I was scared to death of shooting Gary. The shark was on top of him, thrashing around with its back arched. I couldn't stop thinking, If this shark opens its mouth, I'm going to watch my brother die. 

Suddenly, Gary rolled out from under the shark, and it turned and came directly at me with its jaws wide open. Thankfully, I had my spear in position. With the shark only an arm's length away, I aimed, fired, and speared it right in the back of the throat. It was wounded but still alive, and I knew I had to get the spear back. It was our last weapon—Gary had dropped his, along with the snapper— and the boat was still 100 yards away. Reef sharks swim in schools, and who knew how many others were in the water with us. 

I lunged forward. With my hand about a foot from the shark's teeth, I reached into its mouth, grabbed the spear, and pulled it out of the shark's throat. A huge stream of blood started to pour from its mouth and it took off. 

Meanwhile, Gary swam up, grabbed and loaded my spear, and started surveying the sea for other sharks. He didn't see any and said, "Let's go!" 

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Bebe's brother, Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Gary Hall, Jr.

We had to get back to the boat fast because I was bleeding: When the shark had swung past my shoulder, it had bitten my right upper arm. Surprisingly though, I felt no pain. 

We started kicking as fast as we could back to the boat. Gary pushed me along with his free hand and kept asking if I was okay. I could barely answer because I was hyperventilating. I had gone from thinking clearly and logically to a frenzied survival mode. At that moment, my only thought was how scared I was. 

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Bebe flashes her flesh wound.

Back to Safety

It probably only took us three minutes to get to the boat, but it felt like a week. My sister-in-law pulled me up. Then Gary jumped in, hauled up the anchor, and we headed to shore. I was sitting on a bench in the back, shaking and panicked, while Elizabeth used towels to wipe off the blood and made a tourniquet for my arm. It took me a few minutes before I could even look at my arm; I was afraid I was going to see a huge hole in it. When I finally did look and realized it was just a flesh wound—three perfectly distanced teeth marks with the skin peeled back around them—I started laughing and couldn't stop. It was hysterical laughter; I just couldn't believe the ordeal we'd been through. When we got to shore, my parents took me to the emergency room in our town, Islamorada, and I got 19 stitches. 

Looking back on the incident now, I can't explain how I was thinking so clearly about what to do during the attack—nothing I'd ever done before had quite prepared me for that. 

I don't blame the sharks for what happened that day. They were just looking for dinner, and there was so much blood in the water from the fish we'd shot. We just got in the way. Had we stayed closer to the boat, the sharks would have had less of a chance to get to us. 

Since that day, I've gone spearfishing many times. My feeling is, there's no reason to live down in the Keys if you're not in the water. Sometimes I'll freak a little when I see a nurse shark— my heart will start pounding, and I'll get scared for a moment. Other times, the experience doesn't even cross my mind. That's usually when I come home with a great catch. 

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