A Florida man threatening to kill himself while standing knee-deep in the ocean for four hours in Palm Beach on Monday was lured back to land with the help of a swarm of sharks, reports WPBF News 25.
The incident began around noon at a home in Boca Raton, Florida after the man, Paul Charles, allegedly stabbed his girlfriend and her new boyfriend in the chest in a violent rage earlier in the day. The boyfriend was able to stumble to an adjacent house where a neighbor found him wounded and got help.
“I saw the guy staggering,” one of the neighbors said. “I couldn’t make out why he was staggering until I got close and could see he had collapsed in the front yard. He had several stab wounds in the upper chest.”
The suspect fled to Palm Beach armed with a knife and told several people that he was going to kill himself. A subsequent standoff with police lasted almost four hours until a group of sharks swimming behind him in the ocean persuaded him to get out of the water and move back to land. Multiple spinner sharks could be seen jumping in the water around him.
“As he moved around, he gained their attention,” Palm Beach Fire Rescue spokesman James Weber said. “They never got close enough, but we actually used that as a tactic as well.”
The two stabbing victims were taken to area hospitals, but information on their condition has yet to be released.