Key takeaways:
- A 35-year-old woman suffered serious arm and leg injuries in a shark attack Saturday morning at Coogee Beach in Sydney.
- Lifeguard Charlie Verco said he saw the shark surface and helped pull the woman toward shore after she was too weak to climb onto his paddleboard.
- Nearby beaches were closed as a precaution after the attack, and police described the woman’s condition as critical.
A 35-year-old woman was critically injured Saturday when a shark attacked her as she swam with friends off Coogee Beach, one of Sydney’s popular eastern beaches, prompting a rescue by lifeguards and bystanders and the closure of nearby beaches.
New South Wales Police said emergency services were called to the beach on Saturday morning after the woman suffered serious injuries to her arm and leg. Police said members of the public pulled her from the water and began first aid before she was airlifted to a hospital by helicopter.
Ambulance official Michael Corlis said the woman was swimming with two friends about 100 feet from shore when she was attacked. Lifeguard Tony Waller said the shark was about 11 feet long. The BBC reported that several beaches in the area were closed as a precaution, while Sky News, cited by CBS News, reported that Coogee Beach and others nearby would be closed for 24 hours.
Lifeguard Charlie Verco told The Sunday Telegraph that he was on his paddleboard when he saw the shark surface.
“I saw the shark come out of the water and just the size of it shocked me,” Verco told the newspaper. “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, described by CBS News as the first rescuer to reach the woman, said she was too weak to climb onto his paddleboard. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the beach. Other bystanders helped them get back to shore, where an off-duty hospital doctor, Ian Ferguson, and others applied tourniquets.
Ferguson, who was at the beach with his family, said there was a “big cloud of blood in the water.” He told The Sunday Telegraph the woman had a 12-inch-wide bite on her thigh, with exposed bone, and a similar wound on her arm. Corlis said the injuries would require “a lot of surgery,” according to Sky News. Police described the woman’s condition as critical.
Another eyewitness, Nicola Logan, told Reuters she saw a “massive pool of blood” in the water, then “a lady kind of motioning to swim, lots of splashing, and then a ski paddler was out trying to bring her in,” the BBC reported.
The attack follows several shark incidents reported in Australia this year. CBS News reported that three spearfishing divers have been killed in less than a month, with white sharks responsible for two of those attacks and bull sharks seen in the area of another. In January, a 12-year-old boy died after being mauled by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor. There have also been several non-fatal incidents.
The BBC reported that a male diver died last week after being bitten by a suspected 4.5-meter, or 14.8-foot, shark southeast of Perth in Western Australia.
Shark attacks around Australia are more common than in many other parts of the world, though they are often not fatal. The International Shark Attack File, a global database maintained by the University of Florida, has recorded more than 1,280 shark incidents around Australia since 1791, including more than 250 fatal incidents, according to CBS News. The BBC reported that records show almost 1,300 attacks in Australia since 1791, with more than 260 resulting in death.
Popular swimming and surfing areas in Australia often have measures intended to protect against shark attacks, the BBC reported.
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