Weird But True
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Jackass-style shark stunt gone horribly wrong caught on video

It was a Jackass-style stunt that nearly turned around and bit Australian adrenalin junkie Shaun Harrington – or rather mauled him.

Harrington, 27, and fellow forever-clowning twin brother Dean decided to go “cage diving” with sharks off the Gold Coast, which is Australia’s answer to Miami, last weekend for an extreme video shoot for their surfing and fishing clothing label, fittingly called The Mad Hueys.

But the cage wasn’t the jaws-proof reinforced steel type typically used by shark divers – it was a flimsy $50 bird cage Shaun planned to put on his head.

Not surprisingly, things turned awry when an eight-foot-long tiger shark caught by a professional fisherman lunged at Harrington after he jumped into the ocean off with only the bird cage for protection.

Yelling in terror, he was forced to use the cage to fend off the shark and scramble back onto the boat.

“It was heavy – its scared the s–t out of me and I thought I was a goner,” Harrington said yesterday.

“We were just having fun but it turned crazy.”

Harrington said his brother surprised him by telling him they were going on a “B-grade shark fishing tour.”

“He pulled out the bird cage and told me ‘this is the cage we’re going to use and we’re going out there to find a shark,'” he said.

“I said ‘no way!’ but we were out there and the first line our mate pulled up had an eight-foot tiger shark on it still thrashing around.

“I jumped into the water and was swimming with the cage and the next thing I knew, the bloody thing was coming at me.

“I was flailing around like crazy to get back on the boat before it sunk its teeth into me.”

Dean Harrington pushed the twins’ luck even further when he also jumped into the water with the shark – with a freshly dislocated arm.

Shaun said: “We surf every day and never really see any sharks but we definitely won’t be doing anything as stupid as this again. My girlfriend said ‘no more – no more sharks!'”

Warning: Graphic language

This article originally appeared on News.com.au.