Today's story is about a guy named John who just wanted to go surfing, and he would get a chance to do that. However, when he was finally out on the water, something super rare and super horrible happened to him that actually kicked off a series of more rare and terrible things that all happened to John. I mean, this whole story is so outrageous that it just sounds totally made up. But I can promise you it's not. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious, Delivered in Story Format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload once a week. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the like button a friendship bracelet using those little beads with letters on them, but make sure you spell on their bracelet, Nobody likes you before you hand it over. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. On an April morning in 1993, a surfer named John Doyle was sitting on a surfboard out in the Atlantic Ocean off the Coast of West Africa, just scanning the water waiting for a wave.

John was totally alone out here. There were no other surfers, nothing. The only sign of human civilization anywhere was John's landrover, which was parked up on the sand on beach. John was an American. He was from Colorado, and so his experience had always been lots of snow and mountains and trees because that's Colorado. But now here, off the Coast of Africa, it was a totally different planet. In fact, today, John was really feeling that because the sun was so hot that day. It was over 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and he could actually feel his back starting to burn as he sat there waiting for the next wave. He told himself, actually, that he would just catch one more wave and I can call it a day to avoid a sunburn. But as John continued to scan out across the water waiting for this wave, he noticed about 20 meters away was a shark fin swimming in a circle, like stereotypical terrifying shark behavior. John is horrified, and he wants to get out of the water immediately, but he's far enough away from shore that if he jumped into the water to swim to shore, he's going to be in the water with the shark thrashing around.

He's just going to attract the shark over to him. And so John decides his only hope here to escape the shark is actually just to surf in. That way, he'll stay out of the water. It's much faster. He'll get to shore. If the shark can't follow him there, it'll be fine. And so, trying to stay calm, John continued to keep his eye on the shark that was still 20 meters away, and he also really looked closely for any swell coming towards him that might be big enough to allow him to surf to shore. And thankfully, after only a couple of minutes, John did see a swell coming towards him that seemed like it would be perfect for a final wave. At this point, John is facing out to sea towards this swell, towards the shark that's still 20 meters away, and he turns himself around. He's facing towards shore, and then he lays down on his stomach, and he begins to paddle towards shore. As he's doing this, he's checking the swell to see when it's going to come up, when he can stand up. Eventually, the swell is right underneath him. As he's about to stand up on his board and actually surf into shore, he looks into the water that has not quite formed into a wave yet, and he sees the shark.

It's literally underneath him. John has this sudden surge of adrenaline, and he just jumps up onto his board. He stands up, and for a second, he's stable He's surfing, and he's riding this wave away from the shark. He's doing exactly what he hoped he could do. He can't believe it. Then, because he was panicked, because he was rushing, because it was a new board, who knows why, the nose of his board suddenly dipped just long enough to throw John off his board and into the water with the shark. Immediately, as this wave is churning John over, he grabs onto his surfboard and just holds on, and he's waiting for a moment when the wave stops so he can get out of the water, back on his board and away from the shark. But before the wave even stopped tumbling him over, John suddenly felt the searing pain in his calf. John, who's underwater still clutching his board, he opens his eyes underwater, then he looks down and through the cloudy water, he can see very clearly it is the shark, and it's a great white shark that is latched onto his leg. And so now, in a total panic, John began punching the nose of the shark.

When he did, the shark actually recoiled and released his leg long enough that John could pull it out. He actually managed to get up onto his board again. Just a second later, almost out of instinct, he was back standing on his board just surfing along with a leg that was now bleeding profusely into the water. For a second, John was stable and appeared to be moving towards shore again. But then the shark, it doubled around and swam at John from the side and literally smashed into him, knocking him off the board back into the water. But this time, John managed, when he fell the second time, to actually grab on to the board with both hands. So he has two hands on the board. He's getting tumbled in the water again, but he knows the shark is going to come for him. And so at the last second, he pulled the board close to his body and turned himself like it was a shield, and the shark came flying towards him and bit him. But because he used that surfboard as a shield, the shark just bit the surfboard, ripped off half of it, and swam off with it, and began mauling this half of the surfboard.

John, with the other half of the surfboard, he somehow managed to stand up on it. Again, his leg is bleeding everywhere. And he rode this damaged half surfboard into shore, successfully away from the shark. When John pulled himself up onto the sand, out of the water, he looked back and he saw the shark swimming off. Even though he's in excruciating pain from this attack, he was so relieved. He couldn't believe he actually just survived that. But John did not have time to think about what good fortune this was in a way, because he was an hour away from the nearest civilization. Between where he was now and that town, there was nothing. There weren't homes, there weren't buildings, there weren't offices, nothing. It was just totally wild lands until you got to that town. John knew he would need to get in his car and drive all the way to that town and then get the people of the town to go get medical help. I mean, he is hours away from getting the help he needs, and so he has no time to waste. He crawls through the sand. His leg is killing him, but he's just so focused on getting up to his Landrover, and he manages to get to his car.

He manages to get to his car, he opens the door, he climbs in the driver's seat. Then as soon as he's in there, he shuts and locks the doors. Then he grabs a white T-shirt that he had on the passenger seat, and he ripped it into strips, and He used those strips like tourniquets, and he wrapped them around his leg, the leg that was bleeding from his calf. He basically used this tourniquet to attempt to cut off blood flow to his entire right leg to stop the bleeding to save his life. But the wound on his right leg was so bad and so deep that despite putting on multiple very tight tourniquets, it just wasn't doing very much. He was still losing blood at a pace that likely would kill him before he got to town. And so John was like, Well, nothing else I can do but attempt to go to town. So he fired up his car, he reversed off the beach, and began making his way towards town. As John sped along the road, he began to feel very light-headed. Between the pain in his leg and the extreme heat outside, he just felt very dehydrated and weak.

So he thought to himself, If I can't get a sip of water soon, I'm going to pass out right now, and then I'm done for. As he's driving along, John began fumbling around his car, looking for any liquid somewhere in the car, but ultimately all he found was an empty water bottle. All he saw in every direction was just this barren African Savannah with no people and no water anywhere. John just kept on driving, hoping eventually he might find some water source. Luckily, after only a couple of minutes when his eyelids were really starting to droop and he was having a hard time focusing, he noticed up ahead there was a copse of trees with a little creek that ran through it. Immediately, John pulled over and he got out and he hobbled his way over to the water. He laid down on his stomach, so his face is basically right over the water. Then he just put his face in the water and began to drink. As he did, he felt his heart rate start to slow down. He felt himself relax a little bit. He started to think to like, Hey, I found water.

I'm doing okay. Maybe I will survive this. But right as John was starting to feel optimistic, he felt a new shooting pain on his right side. With a little bit of strength he had, he managed to turn his head and looked to see what was going on. Staring back at him was a lion who had just bit his side and was now growling and staring at John and beginning to move its jaw left and right to really sink its teeth into John. Okay, so if you're not listening to our show called RunFool, then you are really missing out on a truly special and unique podcast. Now, it's technically a horror podcast, but honestly, it's so much more. Every episode is a fresh take on terrifying lore, like a modern ghost story wrapped up in a tightly-spun narrative. Also, remember, RunFool is a Balin Studio's podcast, which means there's always going to be a big plot twist or reveal at the end. Rodney Barnes is the iconic host of RunFool, and every story he tells on there, it feels like this fully immersive horror movie. Also, the sound design on the show is like expert level.

Barnes really knows what he's doing. Even if you never watch the show, you should tune in just for a second, at least once, just to hear Barnes's radio voice. It is like the best, most soothing voice I think I've ever heard. So if Runful feels like a show you might like, Week, go run and follow the show and start listening. Also, be sure you stick around till the end of today's video because we're going to play a clip from last week's episode of Runful. Now, this is unbelievably painful for John, and he's already dealing with an unbelievable pain in his leg from the shark attack. And so John's experiencing pain that very few people ever get to experience. And it caused this unbelievable surge of adrenaline, one that you would likely get basically right before you die. That was the level of adrenaline he was getting. And with this adrenaline rush, he grabbed a stick and he began hitting this lion who's locked onto his ribs, and he managed to beat the lion off of him. The lion, it only backed up maybe a few feet, and it still totally fixated on John, and it's growling and edging towards him.

But John, all he could do was just attempt to get to his Landrover. And so as soon as the lion had let go of him, he just stood up and pathetically began hobbling as fast as he could towards his landrover. He literally just walked past this lion who's still growling at him, trying to size him up. And he just kept on walking towards his car, and he was almost there when he noticed the sound of the lion growling behind him, which had been constant to this point, had suddenly intensified to the point where John couldn't even help himself. He had to turn around and see what was going on. When he turned around, he saw now there was not just one lion, but an entire pride of lions. There was at least four lions that now had all formed a semicircle and were staring at John and moving towards him to eat him. But John really couldn't do anything about this. All he could do was just hopefully get to his landrover in time. John just turned back around so his back is to the pride of lions a few feet away from him, and he just continues hobbling towards his car.

As he walked, the lions began swiping at him and cutting his legs open and his arms open. I mean, they're like razor blades just being taken to the backside of him, but they didn't launch a full bore attack on him. It was like they were just testing him. Then right when the lions were basically about to actually pull John to the ground and eat him was when John got to the door, opened it up, jumped inside, shut it, and locked it. However, when John went to grab his keys and start the car, he realized he didn't have the keys. When he turned and looked outside, he saw the pride of lions and his car keys on the ground. He was doomed. He knew there was no way he could get those keys without getting killed in the process. John basically just resigned himself to die in his car right here. He knew, I'm going to die in the next few hours. There's nothing I can do. He just sat there and waited. Thirty minutes later, John heard a very loud, almost explosion sound coming from somewhere outside of the vehicle. Then he heard it a few more times.

Before long, the lions were so startled by it that they ran away. Then he hears what sounds like a series of shutter flashes, like camera flashes. He's looking around. He can't quite figure out what's even going on because, again, he has all these injuries. He's lost so much blood. Then eventually, John just passes out having no idea what had just happened. It would turn out there was actually a safari that was happening in the area where John was at the same time. The safari guide, as they drove past this area, happened to spot John inside of his landrover, surrounded by lions. As all the people in the tour began furiously taking photos of this crazy scene in front of them, the tour guide began firing his rifle into the sky to scare the lions off. And so those were the noises that John was hearing before he passed out. And then after he passed out, the tour guide and all the people on the tour pulled John out of his landrober because now the lions are gone, and they would take him to a hospital where doctors and nurses would have to give him 250 stitches to stitch up all of his various shark and lion wounds.

John would make a full recovery, and he would hang up on his wall in his office the broken half of that surfboard that he did successfully manage to ride in to escape the shark. He says the surfboard reminds him how lucky he was. As promised, here is a clip from in last week's episode of our amazing podcast, Run Full, hosted by the incredible, iconic storyteller Rodney Barnes. Enjoy.

That's when Uma flew in for some damage control. Her tone was polite but firm as she informed the outsider that this was a private party. He needed to leave. Ethan flinched. This was so embarrassing. Is he going to get kicked out next? But the outsider didn't seem bothered. He asked again where Dr. Smith was. Where is he? Uma grabbed his elbow and pulled him towards the exit. That's when the man lost it. He ripped his arm from Uma and backed away, trembleing. His mouth quivered. His eyes leaked fear. He opened his mouth and screamed. The well cut through Ethan's head like a knife. He yelped and covered his ears with his palms. The other guests did, too. So did Uma, but she looked wrong. Her head shook back and forth. It picked up speed until her features became a blur. Ethan could hear her choking, too. Loud hack and gasp as her throat struggled to keep up with the unnatural movement. Her trembling hands moved to her cheeks, a futile attempt to stop whatever was happening. Then a loud crack echoed through the room. And with that, Oma's head twisted all the way around on her neck.

So that's going to do it. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more strange, dark, and mysterious content, be sure you check out all of our podcast offerings out of Balin Studios. If you look up Balin Studios on any podcast platform, you'll find the Mr. Balin podcast, Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries, Runful, Bedtime Stories, and there's more coming. So if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and mysterious, be sure to look up Balin Studios and check out all those podcasts on whichever podcast platform you prefer. Thank you so much. Until next time. See you. Wait, don't go anywhere. If you're looking for more Strange, Dark, and Mysterious videos, click here.