Couple Swim in Homemade Shark Cages at North Carolina Beach in Viral Video

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C., July 22 (UPI) — The couple featured in a viral video of a North Carolina lifeguard stopping two people from swimming in homemade shark cages said the objects were a joke.

A video posted to YouTube Tuesday by Jordan Cutrell of Camden, N.C., shows the two people at a beach in the Outer Banks walking into the water wearing what appeared to be homemade shark cages Sunday.

“These people are going swimming in their shark-proof cages,” Cutrell says incredulously in the video. “They don’t wanna get bit.”

A lifeguard blows his whistle at the couple and they exit the water to have a conversation with the man out of range of the camera’s microphone.

“Everyone was curious of what was going on and was in awe,” Cutrell told WBTV. “As many times as I have been to the beach, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Cutrell said the cages appeared to be constructed from PVC pipe and “obviously wouldn’t and couldn’t be seriously used to go swimming with sharks.”

The couple from the video, Sandi and Scott Bergman, said they spent about eight hours building the cages as a means to amuse friends and family.

“There’s just so much serious going on the news right now. We wanted to be light-hearted,” Sandi Bergman told WWBT-TV.

The couple confirmed the cages, which they dubbed “Blokjaw,” were made from PVC pipes, bolts and plastic.

“People started walking up to us [and asking], ‘Are these shark cages? Can I get in the shark cage?’ ‘Yes, you can get in the shark cage’,” Sandi Bergman said. “So on the shark cages go, and we were taking pictures with their phones and then we pick them up and start to leave the beach… and then people who were a little way’s away from us, as we walked by them… ‘Hey wait a minute. Are those shark cages?'”

The couple shared a photo from their Sunday trip to the beach with the Ocracoke Current website.

Ben Battaile, assistant ocean rescue supervisor for Kill Devil Hills, said the lifeguard seen in the video was concerned about the dangers the cages could pose if the couple ended up in water over their heads. He said the lifeguard asked them not to take the cages past the knee-deep water.