Feasting on the dead

“Hammerhead sharks feasting on the dead make a unique sound.” So says William, a disabled Navy veteran and survivor of a horrifying incident that occurred in the Persian Gulf. At the age of twenty, William enlisted in the Navy and served for six years, working on radar and weapons systems. On 18 November 2001, he was part of a team from the destroyer USS Peterson that boarded the Samra, a suspected oil smuggler sailing under the UAE flag. The Samra capsized on the port side, and William spent the night clinging to debris, waiting to be rescued, and listening to the sounds of sharks devouring those who hadn’t made it. “There is only one sound like a bone being crunched through,” William notes. “And that’s a bone being crunched through.”