"I was staring at this shark eyeball-to-eyeball with its teeth on the side of my rib cage"

“He just swam right at me and when he lunged into my chest, I could feel his whole body vibrating,” says Robles, who is an open-water swimmer and completed a 24-mile swim from Catalina Island to Palos Verdes last year. “It happened so quick. I was very scared. It was burning pain. … I was staring at this shark eyeball-to-eyeball with its teeth on the side of my rib cage.”

And though it was “the most frightening thing” he’s ever experienced, Robles followed “pure instinct” that saved his life.

“I had enough sense to use my right hand to grab its nose and pry the fish’s teeth off my side torso area,” he says.