SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – A boy mauled by a shark while swimming in Sydney Harbour on Sunday, 18 January is in a critical condition after sustaining serious leg injuries following the attack.
According to local authorities, the predator bit the boy, believed to be about 13 years old, during the late afternoon off Shark Beach, New South Wales state police said.
“The injuries are consistent with what is believed to have been a large shark,” police said in a
statement.
Officers pulled the boy from the water off the harbour beach within minutes of being alerted
to the incident.
They gave the boy first aid for “serious” leg injuries while he was aboard a police boat,
applying two medical tourniquets in an effort to prevent further blood loss.
Paramedics transported him to Sydney Children’s Hospital, where he was said to be in a
critical condition.
“Swimmers are advised to avoid entering nearby waters at this time,” police said.
Shark Beach, in Sydney’s eastern suburb of Vaucluse, was closed and police evacuated
nearby beaches in the harbour. Wildlife experts were working to identify the shark species involved.
“This is a tragic shark attack on a young boy having a swim on a Sunday afternoon near a
harbour beach in Sydney’s east,” New South Wales Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said.
“Our thoughts are with the young boy and his family. I understand there were also other
young people with him at the time of the attack, our thoughts are also with them.”
There have been more than 1 280 shark incidents around Australia since 1791, of which more
than 250 resulted in death, according to a database of the predators’ encounters with
humans.
Increasingly crowded waters and rising ocean temperatures that appear to be swaying
sharks’ migratory patterns may be contributing to a rise in attacks despite overfishing
depleting some species, scientists say.
- A great white shark mauled surfer Mercury Psillakis to death at a popular northern Sydney ocean beach in September.
- Two months later, a bull shark killed a woman swimming off a remote beach north of Sydney.
