Jaw-dropping footage from Western Australia shows what may be the beginning of a dolphin uprising against humanity. In the video, one member of a gang of the mammals unexpectedly launches a full-body assault on an innocent man.
Paddleboarder Andrew Hill, 54, was enjoying the surf Friday afternoon when he noticed a pod of dolphins bearing down on him near Gracetown, a coastal town approximately 270 kilometers (167 miles) south of Perth.
“Eight or nine of them decided to catch that wave and surf straight at me, which has happened lots of times in the past to me and generally they just take off to one side left or right,” Hill told Perth Now.
“[It was a] Fairly legal hip and shoulder I think. And hats off to him, he collected me really well,” he continued. “It's good to see dolphins. Surfers like seeing dolphins, but obviously I'd prefer them to stay a little bit further away than they did yesterday.”
Putting a brave face on the shocking blow, Hill explains that, apart from being slightly winded, he was lucky to escape with no injuries whatsoever.
Hill believes the dolphins were herding fish at the time and that one of them was just having a bit of fun. He encounters dolphins regularly, but says “generally they just take off to one side left or right.”
Footage captured by Lucas Englert (@lubricatedsurfpics), who happened to be on the beach preparing to film a group of surfers at the time of the tackle, shows the huge hit. Englert has made his account private but the video has been shared widely across the surfing community online. One of the clips has already garnered 1.2 million views.
“He was actually very happy because I don't think he thought that anyone was actually going to believe his story - so now he's got the proof,” Englert told Seven News Perth.
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