Chris Myers, survivor of apparent great white shark attack in Truro, hopes to return to ocean some day

By Melissa M. Werthmann, Globe Correspondent

Chris Myers said it may be some time before he leaps back into the ocean.

He is the man who was bitten in the waters off Ballston Beach in Truro on Monday by what the state’s top shark scientist believes was a great white shark, which could make Myers the first shark attack victim in Massachusetts since 1936.

“It will take some gentle effort to get back in the water, but I hope one day,’’ Myers said in a television interview on “Good Morning America” today.

Myers was swimming some 400 yards off the beach with his teenage son when he was bitten on both legs, but managed to swim to shore. He was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital and then transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is recovering.

Chris Myers and his son, J.J., during their ‘Good Morning America’ interview. (ABC News)

His son, J.J., also appeared on the ABC network show and said the attack seemed unreal.

“I heard him scream and turned around, and saw the back and the fin of the shark up out of water,” he said. “At that point it hit me when it was happening. But at the same time, I thought that none if it was real. It really seemed like a movie. None of it seemed real until I was on the beach.”

Myers said he struggled getting to shore, and worried about blood loss.

“We really didn’t have a lot of options,” Myers said in the interview. “We were motivated, so we swam, hard. I was thinking as I was swimming, my lungs were fine, my kick was fine, I was starting to feel kind of dizzy and wondering if I was losing blood. My concern was that I wouldn’t make it back to shore, but we were able to do it.”

At a Boston press conference Tuesday, the state’s top shark scientist said he is more than 90 percent sure that the attack was from a great white.

“In all likelihood, these injuries can be attributed to a great white shark,’’ said Greg Skomal, a senior scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “While the last confirmed injury caused by a white shark in Massachusetts occurred in 1936, the weight of evidence - including eyewitness sighting of a fin, the presence of seals, and the extent of injury -- points to a white shark.’’

Despite the fact that great white shark attacks are not common in Massachusetts, Myers urged swimmers to take caution.

“I’ve been swimming at that beach since I was a little kid, and no one in recent memory has ever had a shark attack, let alone by a great white, which they are saying they think it was,” he told ABC. “Maybe people need to be a little more careful.”

Truro’s Assistant Beach Administrator Hannah Gonsalves said today there have been no shark sightings since Monday’s attack.