A Shark's Tale:

Northern California Man Takes Keeps Quiet After Shark Attack:

Most shark attack survivors spend the first hour after they're hit doing one of two things: Fighting for their life as they're swen back together, or standing in front of a camera, wearing a shell-shockerd grin, recounting their nerar miss for the local news.
43-year-old Northern California standout Royce Fraley, however, did neither.
After being attacked, and escaping with no serious injuries in December , during a session at the ominously titled "Shark Pit", Fraley slipped away before the media could pin him down for a quote. "He was very quiet", said Nick Marlow, a friend who witnessed the attack, while speaking with the local press. "He didn't look scared.
He just looked like he had gone through something very serious and was talking it in". For Fraley, the incident began as simply another covert session above the San Francisco Bay. But without warning, an estimated 15-foot great white surged from the depths and dragged him and his board--which was luckly wedged between his body and the shark's thousand-and-something teeth --15 feet below the surface.
Heid underwater and rag-dolled, the shark eventually released Fraley and he was able to escape. Whit a massive 18-inch bite mark on his board but nary a scratch on his body, Fraley was, as Marin County Sheriff responding officer Deputy Stephen Debrunner explained to local press, "Very Lucky".
"He was shaken up, but the wound wasn't even enough to bandage", continued Deputy Debrunner. "It broken the skin and made red marks, like the marks from a dog bite". As it turned out, Fraley's reluctance to speak after his near-death experience stemmed from his own personal fears, not of sharks, but of his mother. "He's had other encounter out there", said Santa Rosa's Keith Stephens.
"And he told his mom that he'd quit srfing because of them.
He kept this quiet because he didn't want her to find out that he was still surfing.
Fraley's mother, Sylvia, speaking to the press, explained.
"It was just by the grace of God that this shark didn't bite down that hard.
It got part of this hip and upper torso, but they were all superficial wounds.
How lucky is that ?".
As of press time, Fraley still hadn't returned to the water.
But since he's been attacked before, and continued to paddle out, it remains to be seen wheter he keeps his word. Whick begs the question: Which is worse:the prospect of being attacked yet again, or growh man hiding his surfing habit from his mom ?