A woman was walking her dogs on an Oregon beach when she saw a small shark struggling.

It was lucky timing for the salmon shark, which was suffocating in a low tide area near the shoreline.

"I was essentially nervous about touching it at all," Colleen Dunn, wrote in a text message Wednesday. "I have three kids so I didn't wanna put myself in a dangerous position."

At first, she thought it was a baby great white.

Dunn called her husband at an office at Nehalem Bay State Park for advice, but got no answer. So, with her dogs waiting patiently, she grabbed the 3-foot shark by the tail and rushed it to deeper water while taking a video of it on her phone.

This screenshot taken from video provided by Colleen Dunn shows a salmon shark on a beach near Portland, Ore., Oct. 2025. Colleen D

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