Filmmaker Keoni Bowthorpe, who paddled straight into the fray when he saw a tiger shark attacking a fellow surfer off Oahu’s North Shore, today will receive the Carnegie Medal, a national honor, for his selfless courage.
Surfer Colin Cook lost most of his left leg to the 13-foot shark last year, but Bowthorpe managed to save Cook’s life, using a stand-up paddle against the animal, then hauling Cook to shore on his board, largely submerged with their combined weight.
“I have no lifesaving experience — my experience is keeping myself alive when it gets big up here,” Bowthorpe, a North Shore resident, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in an interview Tuesday. “Instinct kind of takes over and your body does things without your permission, and that’s kind of what happened.”
The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, based in Pittsburgh, will announce 25 new recipients of the medal that recognizes outstanding civilian heroism. A legacy of the late steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the awards are given to people “who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the lives of others.”
Bowthorpe was heading toward shore after a surf session at the Leftovers break on Oct. 9 when he heard something from Cook, who was more than 150 yards away.
“I thought he said something so I turned around and saw the shark hit him, and he was pulled down,” Bowthorpe recalled. “I knew that he was going to need help.”
“When I got within 50 yards of him, I could see that he had lost his leg. When I got to him, the shark was still, how do I say this, still attached to his board and basically pulling him around,” Bowthorpe said.
Cook, who was then 25, said that he felt like he had been hit by a truck when the shark slammed him.
“As soon as I swam up, I saw Keoni, yelled at him,” Cook said at a news conference at Queen’s Medical Center a week after the attack. “He’s really the hero. He paddled over there with the shark on me and was able to get me to the beach, really, to safety.”
It was no sure thing at the time. Bowthorpe remembers looking toward shore, 150 to 200 yards away, and thought how small the people looked, and how far away they seemed.
“At one point I remember Colin said, ‘Tell my family I love them,’” Bowthorpe said. “I said a little prayer and I hit the shark one last time, said a little prayer and I tossed the paddle, and he climbed on my back and we just started paddling in.
Although Cook’s hand had been shredded when he tried to fend off the shark, he managed to hang on.
“He was obviously passing in and out of consciousness, but he had wedged himself in such a way that he really held on, and that made all the difference,” Bowthorpe said. “It’s really a credit to him.”
Bowthorpe does not know who nominated him for the award, and said it was a big honor even to be considered for it. The medals have been given out since 1904 to more than 9,800 individuals, along with grants of varying amounts.
The 34-year-old father, whose kids are ages 4, 2 and 1, said the ordeal last October stays with him, although he returned to surfing right away.
“You look at life through a different lens,” Bowthorpe said. “I got home that day and I kind of gathered my family. You hold them a little closer. You make sure that you’re in the moment and hopefully not on your phone or social media and missing stuff, because you never know.”
He already had a healthy respect for sharks. At the time of the attack, he was working on a film project, called “Saving Jaws,” that highlighted the vital role sharks play in the ocean ecosystem. But he has suspended work on it, not wanting to appear to be exploiting the situation in any way.
Cook, who went home to Rhode Island to rehabilitate, recently came back to Oahu and visited with Bowthorpe’s family. The two men headed back into the ocean, free diving at Sharks Cove.
“He’s surfing again,” Bowthorpe said. “It’s really excellent. The kid’s a fish.”
“You want to remain in the water,” Bowthorpe added. “You can’t lose that. You have to figure out ways to get over what you’ve seen.”
