A gruesome shark attack saw a man pull his arm out of the beast's jaws, only to find half of it missing.
Chuck Anderson was training for a triathlon with his friend Richard Watley, when the pair were struck by what was believed to be a 6-foot bull shark, weighing an estimated 180 pounds.
The attack, which occurred about 100 feet off the beach at Alabama's Gulf Shores in the United States in 2000, made headline news as the father-of-two-battled back from life changing injuries to competing in triathlons again.
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"I felt this blow, I came up and a shark was attacking me," Anderson said.
"First it took off my fingers, then it attacked my midsection, and then my right arm went right into the shark's mouth."
The shark dragged him across the ocean floor for about a minute, and then laid on top of him on a sandbar.
Anderson hit the shark with his left arm, and struggled to get his right arm out of the shark's mouth.
When he finally did, his hand and wrist were gone, and only bony remnants of his forearm remained.
Anderson managed to make it back to shore, where someone tied a shirt into a tourniquet to slow his blood loss.
Watley was less seriously injured, with puncture wounds on his hip and arm, but no bone damage.
It was the first recorded shark attack so close to the beach in Alabama, and the second confirmed attack ever in Alabama waters.
But Anderson, who lost much of his right arm in a shark attack, was determined not to let it stop him competing in a triathlon the following year.
"It was a challenge I was going to meet," the then 47-year-old high school coach and assistant principal told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.
"Early on, I figured out that all it would take would be time, effort and energy and the only person to stop me would be myself."
Anderson had 52 triathlons under his belt, but things had to be different for his 53rd.
The event on the Alabama coast included a 400-yard swim in Old River between Ono Island and Perdido Key, a 15-mile bicycle ride and a 4-mile run.
He trained two hours and 20 minutes a day from September to February to get his elbow moving, because it was stiff.
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The toughest part of the race was the bike leg because he needed to maintain balance.
Naturally getting back in the salt water was daunting too, and he felt uncomfortable when others were not close by.
As Anderson crossed the finish line of the Flora-Bama Mullet Man Triathlon, he pumped his left arm into the air in victory having shaved four minutes off his time over the year.
Following the race Anderson vowed to come back even stronger the following year.
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