Shark attack leads to lucky discovery
BOSTON -- A Fitchburg, Massachusetts, man says if it wasn't for a terrifying encounter in the ocean with a shark, he wouldn't be alive.
CBS Boston reports that Eugene Finney was injured when a shark smashed into him while he was swimming at a California beach while on vacation with his family.
"Something struck me from behind. I'd never been hit like that before. It was pretty jarring. It kind of gave me an instant whiplash," he said.
Finney said he struggled out of the water.
"That's when my daughter said to me, Daddy, how come your back is all bloody?" Finney recalled to CBS Boston.
Finney was bruised, in pain and had a gash down his back.
Soon after, the beach was closed when two sharks were spotted.
"That night I started having pretty serious chest and back pains," Finney explained.
But Finney says it's what happened next that has him crediting the shark with saving his life.
"The shark was a real message to me," Finney tells CBS Boston.
Finney said when he got home the pain only got worse. He went to the emergency room, and finally was given a diagnosis.
"The pain was caused by interior bruising of the thoracic cavity due to blunt force trauma," Eugene explained.
But it was what they told him next that hit him even harder than the shark, CBS Boston reports.
"They had discovered a growth, or a tumor, on my right kidney about the size of a walnut," he said.
It was cancer.
Two weeks ago, Dr. Ingolf Tuerk at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton, Massachusetts, took the tumor out.
"If this didn't happen with the shark, causing me to go in with this chest pain, I would have never known about this cancer," Finney said.
"It lead to a situation that saved his life. That's pretty fascinating when you think about it," said Dr. Tuerk.
CBS Boston reports that Finney's prognosis is a good one. He doesn't need radiation or chemotherapy.
"I feel fortunate. I really feel like I've gotten a second chance at life," he said. "And I'm not going to blow it."