How to survive a shark attack

You're more likely to be crushed by a vending machine than attacked by a shark, but will you be prepared if it happens?

Jessica Brothers didn't think it could happen to her, either, but it did.

In August 2011, she traded her office for the ocean and went swimming.

"I was just, actually, standing chest-deep in the ocean talking to friends, and we were on our way out to surf and it felt like somebody hit me in the leg," she told WTKR.

She'd been bit by a bull shark, and it took doctors 127 stitches to put her leg back together.

Some of the shark's teeth are still embedded in her leg.

"I'm really lucky," Brothers said.

Even though they might not attack, sharks could be swimming near you at any point.

The predator bit 98 people in 2015 — and 10 percent of those attacks happened along the Carolina coastline.

"The shark is not normally looking for a food source," Christian Legner, an aquarium husbandry curator, told WKTR.

"They use their senses to find out what is good for them, and one of them is taste. They take a bite and they find out that it's not."

She says most sharks are not trying to bite humans, and if that does happen, it's usually a case of mistaken identity.

Legner said that the best way to avoid a shark attack is to refrain from any "frenzied" behavior, like splashing.

She also suggests not to swim during feeding times and stay away from piers.

If you do find yourself in the middle of an attack, don't panic.

According to a CNN interview with shark expert Richard Peirce, you should maintain eye contact, make yourself look bigger, cut off the shark so it can't get behind you and slowly walk away.

Whatever you do, don't play dead. You can punch the shark in the nose, but missing the nose and punching its mouth is deadly.