There are bad days—and then there are “What’s that shark doing on the highway!?” days. That’s exactly what happened on Florida’s I-95 when a tire blowout sent a truck carrying four live sharks into a ditch. One shark was tragically ejected and killed in what might be one of the strangest crashes in highway history. While motorists witnessed this jaw-dropping event (pun intended), rescue teams worked to save the surviving sharks.

In June 2015, a semi-truck transporting four live sharks to the New York Aquarium blew a tire in Volusia County, Florida, sending the vehicle off the road and into a ditch. One shark was thrown from the truck and killed. Imagine the shock for passing motorists, who were not just dealing with a wreck but also witnessing a shark on the highway. It’s the stuff of nightmares, but it truly happened.

“Tire blew out, and we ended up in the ditch,” the driver told WESH 2 News.

Firefighters and rescuers arrived quickly. But with three live sharks still inside the truck, the situation required more than a simple cleanup. A specialized SeaWorld team was called in to rescue the animals.

The delicate process of transferring the surviving sharks to another vehicle took hours. Thankfully, they were in good condition, “nothing different from normal transport stress,” a SeaWorld team member told WESH 2 News.

A shark ejected from a semi-truck is about as bizarre as it gets—more like a B-list disaster movie than reality. The fact that motorists had to swerve around a shark on I-95 is both surreal and terrifying. But behind the strangeness lies a tragic reminder that accidents have consequences, no matter how absurd they seem. Thankfully, the other sharks were rescued, but the loss of one is no less tragic.