“Florida Man” is an icon. Whenever you read his name in a headline you know you are about to read a story, or watch a video, that only he could make newsworthy. Imagine “South Dakota Man” trying to cross the Atlantic in a giant hamster wheel. Boring. That’s just a guy in a hamster wheel. Imagine “Oklahoma Dude” saving a black bear from drowning. Cool, but again, that’s just a dude helping a bear.
Florida Man, though, he does all those things. He steals prop planes and then ditches them. He gets attacked by a shark, returns to the beach where the attack happened, and then gets attacked by a shark again at that same beach. He is resilient. He is sometimes dumb beyond belief. But he has the absolute wildest collection of stories to tell you after a surf session. The latest edition to his mythology includes getting head butted by a leaping shark.
The incident took place while surfing in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Darren Kaye was sitting on his board when a small spinner shark lept out of the water and planted one right on Kaye’s grill.
“I was just really happy its mouth wasn’t open because that’s how they fish,” he told local WFTV 9. “I got right back on my board and my pulse went to about 195 in a second. I paddled as fast as I could right out of the way.”
Even the local reporter interviewing Kaye admits “this is a total ‘Florida Man’ story,” which says something considering Florida is clearly her beat. The whole thing was captured on a low-quality beach camera but you can see the face-to-face interaction.
In true Florida Man fashion, Kaye surfed there the rest of the weekend. Because there were waves, so who can blame the guy?
