Possible Shark Attack Helps Man Discover He Had Cancer

Eugene Finney was visiting his parents in Huntington Beach, CA a couple of months ago when he decided to go for a swim in the ocean. The surf was pretty high that day he remembers. A 10-12 foot wave came barreling toward him and instead of taking the massive wave head on, he decided to dive under the wave.

While under water, Finney recalls being hit in the back. He said he'd never been hit that hard in his life but somehow shook it off and made his way back to shore where his daughter noticed something odd. There was a 1 foot gash on his back that was bleeding profusely. People had spotted shark fins in the area he was swimming so a local sheriff determined that's what probably hit him in the back. He was treated at a local hospital and released.

After traveling back to his home in Fitchburg, MA, Finney began to experience breathing problems and went to the hospital to get checked out. Doctors determined there was some minor swelling around his heart caused from trauma of being hit in the back and it should go away in time on it's own. But that's not all they discovered.

During one of his scans, Doctors also noticed a mass about the size of a walnut on one of his kidneys. After sending it off, it was determined the mass was, in fact, cancerous. Doctors said he probably wouldn't have noticed until it became too late and treatment would have been much more difficult. Finney is expected to make a full recovery.

Moral of the story is that sharks are our friends and they're just trying to tell us when we're sick. OK maybe not but Eugene needs to locate this shark again and shake his fin and buy him a big yummy tuna because had he not been a complete jerk and bumped into him that day, he never would have known just how serious a fight he was facing.