Adam Baber Knocked From Foil Board by Hammerhead in Viral Clip

A viral Instagram clip posted by Adam Baber (@madamorisbabe) shows a hammerhead shark closing on his foil, making contact, and sending him into the water while he was being pulled by a small powered tow device. In the post’s caption Baber wrote, “Today a Hammerhead attacked my foil, knocked me off my board and then circled back on me eventually and thankfully changing his mind,” and added, “Sorry for my screaming. I thought I was done for.”

The footage captures Baber foiling while attached to a tow setup described in reporting as either a remote-controlled “tow boogie” or “one of those electric pulleys.” In the video the device appears to draw the shark’s attention; the animal moves into Baber’s path, the rider and the shark come into contact, Baber loses speed, releases the tow rope and falls into the water.

After the collision the shark circles Baber for several tense seconds before turning away. Commentators have been split over motive and severity; as one line in reporting put it, “It’s up for debate whether he was really ‘attacked’ by the critter, bumped into the thing, or just freaked out and lost balance.” Another contemporary description called the moment “a moment stuck in his mind for the rest of his life,” capturing how close the encounter looked on camera.

The clip provides little geographic context. The Instagram snippet visible in coverage contains Baber’s handle and the clip itself but shows no location tag or timestamp in the material reviewed, and outlets described the incident location as undisclosed. No reports in the available material indicate Baber suffered physical injury, and no damage to the foil or tow device is detailed.

Contextual data underlines how uncommon this species-specific contact is: the International Shark Attack File lists 18 unprovoked attacks by hammerhead sharks and zero deaths, compared with 292 attacks and 59 deaths for great whites in the same dataset. One round of commentary in the coverage emphasized that “sharks and humans interacting, particularly in a violent way, is extremely infrequent. And when it does happen, it’s usually from the big three – great whites, bulls, and tigers. Hammerhead sharks, on the other hand, that’s tremendously uncommon.”

The clip circulated widely on social media after Baber posted it, and it has become a focal point in conversations about tow-assist devices and wildlife encounters. With the Instagram post as the primary record and location, device make and exact incident timing unconfirmed in the public record, the video stands as a stark, well-documented near miss that will likely prompt further questions about tow-device visibility and shark curiosity until Baber or experts provide more technical and location details.