Diver fights off charging hammerhead shark with camera

An Australian diver, who was diving for crayfish, used his camera to fight off a charging hammerhead shark underwater which swam directly towards him off.

Diver Dion Creek shared a video recorded by his GoPro on Magpie Reef, off Princess Charlotte Bay on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland when a hammerhead shark attacked him.

He told 9News that he was about to adjust the camera and caught the shark coming out the corner of his eye.

Creek said that he used his GoPro and its mount stick to push the shark away, but the shark turned around and came back toward him. He added he had to shove the shark with the camera two more times before it left him in peace.

The keen diver quickly resurfaced to find that he had escaped his brush with the hammerhead unharmed.

“I was the only person in the water, there were only two people in the boat,” he said. “Looking back on it I’m actually quite lucky, but at the time it didn’t faze me.”

Creek said the hammerhead was the largest he has encountered in his diving trips.

“I don’t want to be a statistic so next time I need to be more careful and take some more safety precautions and have another diver in the water,” he said.