Woman attacked by shark in Australia, saved by lifeguard
A woman was attacked Saturday at a beach in Australia. It’s the fourth such attack within about five weeks. The others were fatal. File Photo by Bianca De Marchi/EPA
June 13 (UPI) — A woman is in critical condition after a shark attack at a popular Sydney beach Saturday, and she was saved by a nearby lifeguard.
The 35-year-old woman hasn’t been identified. She had serious bite injuries on a leg and an arm from the morning attack at Coogee Beach, a police statement said. She and two friends were swimming about 100 feet from the shore, when she was bitten, ambulance official Michael Corlis said. Lifeguard Tony Waller said the shark was about 11 feet long.
Lifeguard Charlie Verco told The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney that he saw the shark while he was on his paddleboard.
“I saw the shark come out of the water and just the size of it shocked me,” Verco said. “I kept paddling towards her and the shark took her underwater and I was going, ‘What do I do now?’ A couple of seconds later, she popped up again.”
Verco said the victim was too weak to get onto the paddleboard, so he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the beach. Other people helped them get to shore.
Ian Ferguson, an off-duty doctor at the beach with his family, said there was a “big cloud of blood in the water.”
Ferguson and other bystanders applied tourniquets and gave first aid to the woman on the beach. Her leg bite was about a foot wide, and her bone was exposed, he told The Telegraph. The wound on her arm was similar.
They got her to a nearby rugby field where she was flown by helicopter to a hospital.
This is the fourth shark attack in Australia in the past five weeks. Three men have been killed by sharks while spearfishing.
On June 6, a man, 35, died after he was bitten while spearfishing near Michaelmas Island on the western coast. A 38-year-old man died after he was bitten by a 13-foot shark on May 16, then a 39-year-old man was killed in Queensland, in the northeast part of the country, on May 24.
In January, a 12-year-old boy died in the hospital after being attacked by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor.
Since 1791, when records began, there have been nearly 1,300 shark attacks in Australia, with 260 of them fatal. Australia has averaged two to three fatal shark attacks per year since 2000, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database. There were five last year.
Shark attacks have become more common as water sports like surfing and scuba diving have become more popular.
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