Sydney woman wrestles shark, lives to tell the tale

What do you do when you spot a shark swimming right towards you? Most people would think to jump out of the water or call for help, because it is a shark and there is no telling what it could do to you. 

But Melissa Hatheier, a real estate agent from Sydney, decided to go a different route. 

ALSO READ: Watch how this clever dog sneaks into the baby's nursery 

Melissa tells the Daily Telegraph that she went down to the local rock pool in Oak Park to see about the shark after friends told her what was happening. When she got there, she felt like the solution to the problem was a simple one: she would pick up the shark and drop it back into the ocean, where it belongs.  “I jumped in and I thought, ‘I reckon I can get him out’…”, she says. 

Melissa grabbed the shark by the head and the fins, and in the video it seems she struggled to get a good hold of the animal at first. Melissa told The Leader: "He wasn't that heavy but his skin was very rough, like sandpaper."
She eventually managed to pick up the shark and chuck it over the barrier between the rock pool and the ocean, and order was restored. 

ALSO READ: This baby really hates Celine Dion

"He was getting stressed because he was bumping into the rocks and I was thinking I just need to put him back where he is meant to be", Melissa told the Daily Telegraph.

Melissa has been hailed as a hero and people are calling her moment with the shark “the most Australian thing ever”, but she does not think there needs to be much of a fuss. “I was just trying to catch a baby shark – if it had big teeth I wouldn’t have done it”, she told The Leader.