Kelly Slater, demonstrating what a 15-foot great white did to Todd Endris in 2007. Photo: Instagram
Todd Endris, survivor of a brutal 2007 great white shark attack in Monterey Bay, has died from injuries related to a car accident. Details of Endris’ injuries and death are scant — nothing has not been reported in the news media. But according to a GoFundMe account, now removed from the site, Endris sustained the injuries on September 1 while in his truck on a camping trip.
Kelly Slater was among those offering condolences online, with this Instagram post:
Endris’ story went global after his August 28, 2007 attack, making the Discovery Channel, among many other outlets. Twenty-four at the time, Endris was surfing Monterey Bay’s Marina State Beach when he was hit by a 15-footer.
After the initial attack, a school of dolphins surrounded Endris, keeping the fish at bay. “The dolphins were going absolutely crazy and really saved my life,” he says in this bizarrely-produced piece. “I feel like they were jumping over the top of me and swarming around me. They kind of created a wall between me and the shark.”
Friends came to Endris’ aid, getting him to the beach and to emergency medics, who sewed him with 500 dissolvable stitches and 200 staples. “You could see my lungs when they were sewing me up,” he told Surfing magazine.
Endris lost half his blood in the ordeal; it took six weeks to make up all the blood he lost. He kept surfing and became a vocal advocate for protecting great whites. A religious man, he called his own survival a miracle. “It seems there are too many things that came together right to be coincidence.”
