Experienced spear fishermen 50-year-old Jerome Petersen (BJJ brown belt) from South Africa, and his 40-year-old friend Josua Joubert, both Brazilian Jiujitsu instructors were attacked by an aggressive leopard seal on False Bay Beach, South Africa and described the incident as a “near-death experience.”
According to Petersen, the attacks were merciless and the seals continued to bite them as they desperately tried to return to the shore for safety.

The attack lasted 30 minutes, and Jerome attributes his survival to regular jiu-jitsu training, years of experience being at sea, high fitness levels and state of the art equipment.. Imagine fighting a wild aggressive dog the size of a small bear, evolved to hunt…

“I remember the attacks were just relentless and most of the time, my mind just blanked.

“I remember, at one point, just giving up. This thing just kept grabbing me at the ankle and started pulling me down. But there was no time for fear, because if I had fear, I would be dead,” he said.

“So I just kept fighting, and the toughest part was the drowning because you’re trying to hold your breath and fight at the same time. At one point, it grabbed my hand and bit my hand, pulling me down again,” said Petersen.

After about half an hour battling the seal under water, he suffered bites, wounds, scrapes, and bruising all over his body.

“I have puncture wounds in my ankles and legs. My right knee has a very deep wound and I am severely bruised across my body and my arms. The bites happened when I struggled while being dragged down,” he said.

“I have been in bad situations at sea many times where I have been in very rough waters. I have never had a situation where I had to deal with this type of thing, this was a near-death experience.

“I will return to the area again if I’m diving off a boat, but I definitely will not swim from the side of the beach,” he said.

Jerome told Rener Gracie about the incident: