Rodney Fox
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Rodney Winston Fox (November 9, 1940) is a South Australian film maker, conservationist and survivor of an attack by a great white shark.
[edit] Biography
Fox was born in South Australia on 9 November 1940. He is married to Kay, and they have three children, Andrew, Lenore and Darren and seven grandchildren.
Rodney Fox was attacked by a great white shark and badly bitten around the chest and arm in December 1963. His story of the attack and escape has been published many times. He is regarded as a miracle survivor of one of the world's worst non-fatal shark attacks.
In the attack Rodney's abdomen was fully exposed and all ribs broken on his left hand side. His diaphragm was punctured, lung ripped open, scapula was pierced, spleen uncovered, the main artery from his heart was exposed and he was minutes away from his veins collapsing due to the loss of large amounts of blood. Tendons, fingers and thumb in his right hand were all cut and to this day he still has part of a great white tooth embedded in his wrist. Many stitches (462) were required to sew him together after the attack.
He returned to the sea after his attack in 1965 to appear in Ron Taylor's documentary film 'Revenge of a Shark Victim' where he killed sharks underwater using a .303 powerhead, in the era before the conservation movement had begun. They were assisted by leading diver John Harding (later the founding editor of Fathom magazine) who was a part-owner of the production made and released in Australia and South Africa as "Ron Taylor's Shark Fighters".
Fox went on to design and build the first under water observation cage to dive with the great white shark (white pointer shark), and for over 40 years has now led major expeditions to film and study his attacker. He is regarded as a world authority on the great white shark and has a great reputation as an expedition leader and producer of sharks. Rodney has been involved in some way with most great white shark films made in the 20th century.
Rodney's life since the attack has involved consulting and coordinating film crews and arranging and guiding ecotourism adventure trips and expeditions specializing in great white sharks (white pointer shark) and other marine creatures.
Rodney's family opened the Rodney Fox Shark Experience, a shark museum and nautical gift shop in Glenelg, South Australia. The museum features Rodney's private collection of displays and items from 40 years film making on the ocean. The displays feature great white shark models, shark proof cages from the film Jaws, giant and ancient fossil shark teeth, plus photos and video highlights from many films that Rodney has been involved in.
Rodney with his son Andrew Fox, after more than 40 years history, still continues to run Rodney Fox Great White Shark Expeditions, a shark cage diving operation to view great white sharks in the wild off Southern Australia.
[edit] Quotations
- "Rodney Fox's attack is perhaps the best known of all shark attacks. Rodney Fox is a man whose life has been all but defined by the white pointer. The 1963 attack left him with a great fold in his left side where he was sewn together, but he nonetheless chose to devote much of his life to the pursuit (with camera and tourists) of Carcharodon. There has scarcely been an expedition, movie, book or scientific study of the great white shark in which Rodney was not involved.
- From "Great White Shark" 1992, by Richard Ellis & John McCosker -
- "An Australian named Rodney Fox, probably has more experience with live White Sharks than anyone. For more than 20 years he has conducted regular sorties into their realm."
- From the Cousteau Society's Calypso Log. August 1989
- "Rodney Fox, an Australian man of the sea who had guided us to this spot, knew about white shark attacks and miraculous escapes at first hand. In 1963, while participating in a spear-fishing tournament off Aldinga Beach south of Adelaide, his home town, Rodney was nearly bitten in half by a great white. Held together by his wet suit, he was rushed to a hospital, where 462 stitches were required to sew him up. Rodney was back in the water less than three months afterward. Today he is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the behaviour of the great white shark."
- From National Geographic Magazine article Australian Southern Seas.
