Right Whale, Surfer Encounter: Whale KOs Man in Australia

A Right Whale and a surfer in Australia came into contact with one another over the weekend, resulting in the man getting knocked off his board. He was rendered unconscious and woke up in the sand.
Right Whale, Surfer Encounter: Whale KOs Man in Australia
A Fraca Austral whale (also known as Southern Right Whale) flips its tail in the New Golf near Puerto Piramides, in Peninsula Valdez, in the Argentine province of Chubut, June 2006. (JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images)
Jack Phillips
7/8/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

A Right Whale and a surfer in Australia came into contact with one another over the weekend, resulting in the man getting knocked off his board. He was rendered unconscious and woke up in the sand.

Bishan Rajapakse was surfing around 100 feet from Sydney’s Bondi beach when the whale appeared before him.

Rajapakse said the whale approached him and then knocked him out. He recalls nothing else except for waking up on the sand, reported Sky News.

“I just remember this magnificent whale slowly coming to the right of me and coming for another look,” he said. ”I just kind of felt like talking to it like a dog or an animal, and say ‘hey’, that was it. Maybe it was giving me ‘high five’, I don’t know.”

He was taken to safety by other surfers and lifeguards. Later, he was transported to a nearby hospital.

“When I got to him I saw there was this dark, black shadow and it was just massive,” he told Stuff.co.nz. “The whale was moving in like slow motion. It was beautiful and it breached and we could see the barnacles and it was slowly going up and down and turning and it actually made a noise. It was amazing.”

Rajapakse, a New Zealand doctor, suffered no injuries in the incident, reported the website.

“Contacting whales is not what it’s cracked up to be. They look nice and soft but I can’t remember contacting it. Maybe it contacted me,” he added.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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