A shark killed a lady and significantly wounded a person taking an early morning swim together with her at a nationwide park seashore on Australia’s east coast Thursday, police stated.
Consultants say a shark not often assaults multiple individual.
The assault occurred at Crowdy Bay Nationwide Park, which is understood for seashore tenting, fishing spots and mountaineering tracks 224 miles north of Sydney. The incident occurred simply weeks after a shark fatally mauled a surfer at a seashore off Sydney.
Seashores within the space and to the north of the assault have been closed to swimmers indefinitely, Police Chief Insp. Timothy Bayly stated.
Emergency providers have been known as to Kylies Seaside following reviews that two individuals of their mid-20s had been bitten by a shark at 6:30 a.m., Bayly stated.
Bayly declined to element the accidents or the circumstances of the assault. “At this stage, all I’m prepared to say is they were known to each other and they were going for a swim and the shark attacked,” Bayly advised reporters.
A bystander helped the pair on the seashore earlier than ambulance paramedics arrived, however the lady died on the scene.
The person was flown by helicopter to a hospital, and paramedic Josh Smyth stated the person’s situation was severe however secure.
Smyth stated the bystander’s first support may need prevented a double fatality.
“I just really need to have a shoutout to the bystander on the beach who put a makeshift tourniquet on the male’s leg which obviously potentially saved his life and allowed New South Wales Ambulance paramedics to get to him and render first aid,” Smyth advised reporters.
Steven Pearce, Surf Life Saving NSW chief government, described it as “a really, really terrible incident.”
“This area is so remote, there’s no life guarding services up there at all,” Pearce advised native radio 2GB.
The identities of the person and lady weren’t launched.
The Swiss Federal Division of Overseas Affairs stated the 2 have been Swiss nationals. “The Swiss Consulate General in Sydney is in contact with the local authorities and is supporting the relatives within the framework of consular protection,” it stated in a press release.
Scientists had decided the couple had been attacked by a big bull shark, a state authorities assertion stated.
5 drumlines – baited hooks suspended from floats – have been deployed off Kylies Seaside in an try to catch the shark, the federal government stated.
Drumlines had already been put in place to the north at Port Macquarie and to the south at Forster to cut back shark numbers.
Gavin Naylor, director of the College of Florida’s shark analysis program and supervisor of the Worldwide Shark Assault File database, stated a single shark attacking multiple individual was exceptionally uncommon.
“It is very unusual. Individual shark attacks are rare. And shark attacks on two people by the same individual is not unheard of, but it’s very rare,” Naylor stated.
Naylor stated he would wish to know particulars of the sequence of the shark’s conduct Thursday to grasp what had motivated it to chunk.
Two British vacationers have been attacked by a single shark whereas snorkeling on the Nice Barrier Reef off Australia’s northeast coast in 2019. One misplaced a foot and the opposite suffered leg accidents.
There have been greater than 1,280 shark incidents round Australia since 1791, of which greater than 250 resulted in demise, in line with a database of the predators’ encounters with people.
Infographic on shark chunk incidents round Australia from 2000 to 2025, in line with information on the Australian Shark Incident Database. A brand new deadly incident on November 27 can be situated on the map.
John SAEKI / AFP through Getty Pictures
The Worldwide Shark Assault File, a database of world shark assaults run by the College of Florida, famous final yr {that a} “disproportionate” quantity of individuals died from shark bites in Australia in 2023 compared with different international locations around the globe.
A shark fatally mauled a surfer off a Sydney seashore in September. The person, who left a spouse and younger daughter, misplaced “a number of limbs” and his surfboard was damaged in two, police stated.
Earlier this month, an Australian windsurfer had a fortunate escape after coming face-to-face with a shark off the nation’s west coast. A digital camera for the surf media web site swellnet.com captured the second that the shark seemingly got here out of nowhere and knocked 61-year-old Andy McDonald off his board.
“Everything was really nice, and then just out of the blue, bang, something so hard and strong hit me like a freight train,” McDonald advised the Australian community ABC. “It just pushed me up into the air and I fell into the, I fell into the water. I knew it was a shark.”
Agence France-Presse
contributed to this report.
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