Projo Offbeat Blog

Just after Steve Wilder, the Omaha man who gave himself a tracheotomy last month, pushed the manometer scale even higher, he was outdone by an Australian swimmer who made a shark turn and swim away like a skittish minnow.

On Friday, we reported that Wilder set the standard for real men by giving himself a tracheotomy, and then we learned that the tracheotomy Wilder gave himself with a steak knife on April 30, was his second. He'd also take a knife to his throat two years earlier.

Impressive, but then we read about Jason Cull, who was attacked by a 16-foot shark off Australia Saturday. While the shark, believed to be a Great White, was gnawing on his leg, Cull managed to poke it in the eye and live to tell the story.

"I just remember being dragged backwards underwater," Cull said, according to the Associated Press. "I felt along it, I found its eye and I poked it in the eye, and that's when it let go."

What would it take for Wilder to outdo that? A third tracheotomy? A self-heart transplant?

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