Diver Tells How Shark Bit His Head

Blue and white shark underwater

Summary of a S.F. Chronicle article by George Snyder,
Chronicle North Bay Bureau

Diver Tells How Shark Bit His Head

Only minor wounds in attack
at beach on Sonoma Coast

An abalone diver was recovering at home yesterday
after he was attacked and mauled Saturday
by a shark in waters off Jenner.

Rodney Orr, an electrician and part-time commercial fisherman,
was attacked by what appeared to be a great white shark
while he was diving near isolated rocks
at Russian Gulch Beach.

“My head was in its mouth” he said,
“I could see the teeth at an angle.”

“It was a really frightening experience,”
Orr said.

“You think you know what is going to happen to you,
but then you really don’t.”

 

 

 

Poem by Roger Sippl

 

Roger Sippl survived Hodgkin’s Lymphoma as a teenager. After graduating from Berkeley, he IPO’d three software companies, also an adventure.

Sippl studied creative writing at UC Irvine, Berkeley and Stanford Continuing Studies. He’s been published in dozens of journals and has self-published two books of poetry.