Moment dad spots shark behind children as he takes photographs from a drone
A father has captured the terrifying moment his children fled from the water off the coast of Florida after a shark swam near them.
The incident unfolded while Dan Watson, a professional photographer, was at New Smyrna Beach with his wife and children.
As his children played in the water, Watson flew a camera-equipped drone over his family to shoot the scene.
Then he spotted a black blur coming into the picture. It was a shark. Watson dropped the controls of the drone, leaving it to hover in place and yelled to his wife to get their three kids and their two friends out of the water at New Smyrna Beach.
Dan said, “Kids were playing in the beach and I just decided, ‘Hey, now’s a good time to get a picture of them overhead. Literally, as soon as I got it into the air, I started seeing a shadow moving through the water right towards them.”
Dan’s wife, Sally Watson said, “I was at the edge of the water and the kids were standing in the water and I was like, ‘Get out, get out, get out.’ I didn’t know why. So, he immediately brings the drone to me and he shows me the frame of the drone and you see that shark swimming right at our kids – it was terrifying.”
In the photo, which looks like the movie poster for Jaws taken from another angle, you can see the shark’s shadow as it swam toward the shore.
Sally further added, “When you think of a shark, you think of them in deep water, you don’t think of them extremely close, and you don’t think they’ll come in knee deep water… It is terrifying to see them come that close to my kids”.
Dan Watson posted the pictures on to his company’s Instagram account.
For now, Watson and his family plan to stay on the sand next time they go to the beach.