I’ve been on this type of dive & it’s reasonably safe if you follow instructions (ie. keep your arms folded & hands ‘in’). Mostly you’re diving with nurse sharks & caribbean reef sharks. The ‘shark wranglers’, clad in chain mail suits, handle the bait & feed the sharks out front of the phalanx of paying customers. Imagine kneeling on the bottom, shoulder-to-shoulder, with your backs to a reef wall. A wrangler protects each flank while the 3rd wrangler feeds at a distance.
I don’t know what they would do if a tiger shark or a bull shark would show up. Can’t call ‘time-out’ in open water.
While diving off Fort Pierce Florida I had a Tiger swinm nearby and it scared the pooh out of me. I clung to the underside of a ledge and it went away and I got out of the water.
Lobster diving at the time.
Have seen a few bulls and they are more frightening.
Played with nurse and a large hammerhead estuary is in the Indian river just south of here.
Have even seen a whale shark but didn’t go in the water with it as I was trolling at the time for Phelagics.