White shark
Photo: Helmut Fohringer / dpa"Your companion was forced to hit the fish until it let go," said a police report from Australia. Whereby "fish" means a great white shark up to three meters long.
According to the report, Chantelle Doyle and her husband Mark Rapley were surfing on Shelly Beach in Port Macquarie when the shark bit into the woman's right leg. When she was released, she was brought ashore and initially looked after by first responders. She was then flown to a hospital by helicopter. Your condition should be stable.
"He started beating the shark because it just wouldn't let go," an eyewitness, Jed Toohey, told the Daily Telegraph. "He saved her life. He was really amazing." Toohey was also surfing in the sea off Port Macquarie, four hours north of Sydney, on Saturday morning.
The New South Wales head of the volunteer water rescue service Surf Live Saving was also impressed: "The guy paddled over, jumped off his board and hit the shark to get her free. Then he helped her onto the beach. Full cannon, absolutely heroic ", Steven Parce is quoted by the" Sydney Morning Herald ".
The rescuer himself told the newspaper, "I did what anyone would have done."
The wife is being treated at Port Macquarie Base Hospital for her severe lower leg injury. Further information about their condition is not known.
Australia is the country with the most shark attacks in the world. In this year alone there were already five fatalities. In July, a shark had ripped off a ten-year-old from a fishing boat off Tasmania. The boy survived because his father jumped after and saved him.
After the shark attack, beaches in the area were closed for 24 hours, including Shelly Beach, Main Beach, Towns Beach, Tacking Point and Nobbys Beach.
Even if sharks appear to many to be indiscriminate, insatiable eating machines, the predatory fish are better than their reputation. Many species have almost been exterminated by humans. Great white sharks are among the most endangered species in the world.
Icon: The mirrorLöw / AFP
