Surfer Says Shark Attack Felt 'Like Being Hit by a Car'

A surfer was bitten by a shark that broke his board in Northern California this week, in the state's first shark incident of the year.

"It was like being hit by a car," Tommy Civik told Bay City News, according to SFGate of the incident in Mendocino County, north of San Francisco. "All of a sudden, I was shot out of the water."

South Coast Fire Protection District Chief Jason Warner told SFGate that his team responded to a beach in Gualala, California, before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, and bystanders told him that a "big" shark "hit the surfer and the surfboard, threw the surfer up in the air a bit, and broke the board in half."

He said it "latched on to half of the board and [was] kind of thrashing it around."