‘Time to get out of the water’: SC shark sighting video goes viral. Here’s what happened
Jill Horner was enjoying a day out with her daughter Sunday afternoon during Labor Day weekend at Forest Beach on Hilton Head Island near the Alder Lane Beach Access point when, all of a sudden, she heard whistles blaring through the otherwise normal sounds of the beach.
Horner, who moved to the area from Buffalo, N.Y., just 10 days prior for her new position as executive director for Memory Matters, a local memory care company, was excited to experience her first real shark sighting. This was the first time she had encountered a shark ‘in the wild’ rather than behind a glass wall in an aquarium.
“Quite honestly, I was just nappin’ on the beach with my daughter who has come down here to visit,” Horner said.
“We heard the whistles. They (the lifeguards) were whistling at everybody to get out of the water because of the shark.”
Immediately, Horner beckoned to her daughter to retrieve her phone and take a video to share with her family. Later, she shared the video to Facebook thinking others would enjoy watching the experience just as much.
The shark in question was estimated to be “over 6 feet” by local lifeguards present at the scene and was said to be a blacktip shark. Although many on social media said it looked similar to that of a lemon shark due to the presence of a double dorsal fin, a few others mentioned the similarity to a sand tiger shark.
The shark Horner captured on video, however, was not the only one in the water.
At that time, four of these sharks were in the water just feet from the shore.
The sharks appeared to be swimming up and down the shore for “about a mile” and would then circle back.
People were evacuated from the water and a helicopter was monitoring the situation from the sky.
For Horner, the experience was as thrilling as it was educational regarding the habits of local sharks.
“The thing that probably struck me most was how shallow the water was and how close they came,” she said.
“While you get chased out of the water and you’re disappointed for a brief second, it is pretty neat.”
Horner commended the actions of the three lifeguards present at the scene and described them as “on top of it” and vigilant, helping those in the area. The lifeguards were said to answer any questions bystanders had and were the ones to label the sharks in the water as blacktips.
“I really appreciated that they (the lifeguards), you know, with little kids that got scared or with any family member that came up and got excited and asked them, they really took a couple minutes to talk to them which I thought was nice.”
The shark sightings at Forest Beach on Hilton Head Island made for an exciting Labor Day weekend for many visitors and locals alike. Videos of the sharks were posted to Facebook, yet Horner’s video was the one that garnered the most attention.
As of Friday morning, just five days after the video was initially posted, the original video on Facebook in the local “We love Hilton Head Island” group has grabbed over 51,200 views.
“It has gone viral. It was one of those weird things. I was excited to see sharks in their habitat,” Horner said.
The video was captioned, ‘Time to get out of the water.’
Many users took to the comments section of the post to comment about their own shark sightings on the island. Many were from just this year alone.
One user commented that just two weeks prior, their group had seen both a hammerhead and a nurse shark.
Another user commented, “I’ve never seen more sharks in my life than I did this week at HHI beach. Dozens of 4’-6’ sharks going airborne in feeding frenzies.”
As for Horner, she was grateful and excited to have this experience.
“I think people just have to be patient and appreciate Hilton Head Island and the wildlife. We all try to be engaged, but I think if you just take a minute and you look at a situation you can enjoy it that much more.
“I enjoyed filming the shark and seeing it in its habitat and I think that families need to take a minute and appreciate where you are.”
This story was originally published September 9, 2022 at 2:02 PM.
