A brave schoolboy needed 604 stitches after his leg 'opened up like a zip' when it was mangled by a speedboat propeller.
Cian Williams, 14, was trying to climb into the speedboat on a beach when his leg was shredded by the propeller.
Onlookers watched in horror as he was flown by air ambulance to hospital where surgeons battled for five hours to save his leg.
SEVEN operations later, Cian has now spoken for the first time about the horror.
He said. "When I came up and saw my leg, it was in a really bad way. "My foot was hanging off and my toes were hanging off.
"It's like I'd been unzipped. There were just chunks of my leg missing.
"There was blood everywhere. It was like something off Jaws.
"I did think for two minutes that it was a shark or something that had attacked my leg."
Remarkably, surgeons were able to reattach the limb and keen rugby player Cian is now walking again after undergoing physiotherapy since the accident last summer.
Cian said: "I've had to work really hard at the physio, but as well as that I've been really lucky and all the exercises I've done have worked.
"It'll still take a lot of time but I've got a vision of running back onto the rugby field to keep me going.
"Even if that doesn't happen, the last few months I've realised what's important. I'm back in school, seeing my mates, and am alive and happy."
The accident happened last summer at a beach close to Cian's home in Porthmadog, North Wales.
Cian and his brother Marcus had been cooling off in the sea water when they were offered a lift aboard a speed boat. But as Cian tried to climb in his leg got caught in the fast-spinning blades of the boat's propeller.
His mother Sharron, 38, said: "I was devastated at the time. It's every mum's worst nightmare to hear that their child has been in an accident. I just wanted to be with him.
"Cian has been extremely lucky - doctors warned us that he could have lost his leg. "I was determined they try to save it. I knew he was a fighter. The doctors are confident he will eventually make a good recovery - he's a brave lad."