Former NFL star Warren Sapp bitten by shark while lobstering in Florida Keys
The fate of the shark remains unknown
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This is what happens when a four-foot shark runs into a three-hundred pound former NFL athlete.
Warren Sapp, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive tackle, ended up with a deep gouge in his arm after being bitten while lobstering in the Florida Keys.
There was no word on how the shark fared after his encounter with a Hall of Famer known for mowing down quarterbacks.
The shark bit the 43-year-old as he was reaching for the lobster while on a charter fishing trip off Marathon, an island in the Florida Bay 115 miles south of Miami.
“It’s simple,” Two Conchs charter captain Jack Carlson told the Tampa Bay Times after the Wednesday run-in with the toothy fish. “He was lobstering with me and a shark bit Sapp while he was grabbing the lobster. He’s OK.”
He explained that sharks tended to linger around lobster holes when they feed.
One witness said the shark was a four-foot long nurse shark, but it was not confirmed.
Mr Carlson posted a photo of Sapp’s cut, that was on his forearm near his elbow, to the Two Conchs Instagram page.
“Warren Sapp attacked by shark while lobstering #EpicBattle,” it reads.
Sapp did not post a picture of the injury, but he did acknowledge the maritime confrontation in an Instagram post that displayed the day’s bounty.
“Shark won that round, but we won the war!” he wrote, adding the hashtag #DinnerTimeBaby.
Sapp began his career with the Buccaneers in 1995, and has the second most number of sacks in team history. He played for the Oakland Raiders from 2004 until his 2008 retirement.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013
According to the International Shark Attack File, Florida leads the US with more than 700 unprovoked shark attacks between 1837 and 2014 – five times as many that occurred in Hawaii during that period of time.
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