Beachgoers help rescue shark after it washes ashore

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. — A couple visiting Pensacola Beach in Florida got an experience that they probably won’t forget last Thursday. They helped a shark that washed up ashore get back into the water.

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Tina and Josh Fey traveled to Pensacola Beach from Texas for an anniversary celebration that turned into a wild experience, Tina Fey told WKRG.

A friend of the Feys pointed the shark out in the water near where they were relaxing, the news outlet said, according to the Miami Herald. The shark kept swimming closer to the shore.

“We were sitting on the beach just having a good time and my buddy just said, ‘Look out in the water there, man.’ I see that fin and I was like, yeah, it was two or three sandbars away from us,” Josh Fey said, according to WKRG. “Eventually it just turned to the left and started coming directly beeline toward the shoreline, and I said, ‘That’s a big shark coming in.’ And we thought it was chasing some bait or whatnot, but it came all the way to shoreline and beached itself.”

The shark was a longfin mako shark, according to WEAR-TV.

The couple contacted authorities and informed them that a shark washed ashore but instead took matters into their own hands after they reportedly said that there was nothing they could do, according to the Herald. They helped to nudge the shark back into the water.

Other beachgoers assisted the couple and Josh Fey said that he believed the shark weighed five to 600 pounds.

“It took four of us to enter into the water. I hope everybody else that comes to beaches and sees a distressed animal like that, you know, with sea turtles or anything like that, that they help them out,” Josh Fey said, according to WKRG.

The group tugged on the tailfin of the mako shark to get it back in the water. Tina Fey told AL.com that the shark seemed to be “clearly sick or injured,” but there was no indication that it died. In video she posted, the shark was seen swimming away.