A surfer suffered minor injuries after being bitten by a shark on Tuesday, marking the fourth shark attack off the coast of Australia’s most populous state in just three days, as authorities closed beaches and warned of heightened risk due to murky waters following heavy rain.
The latest incident occurred around 9 a.m. at Point Plomer, about 460 kilometres (290 miles) north of the New South Wales state capital, when a shark attacked the man’s surfboard. The 39-year-old was fortunate to escape with only minor cuts and was later discharged from hospital.
“The board seemed to take most of the impact,” Kempsey-Crescent Head Surf Life Saving Club captain Matt Worrall told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “He made his own way into shore where he was assisted by locals.”
Bystanders drove the injured surfer to hospital.
The Point Plomer incident followed a spate of attacks around Sydney on Sunday and Monday, in which a man and a boy suffered critical leg injuries, while another boy escaped unharmed after a shark bit into his surfboard.
On Sunday, a 12-year-old boy was attacked after jumping from a six-metre (20-foot) ledge known as Jump Rock near Shark Beach inside Sydney Harbour. Police said the boy’s friends helped save his life by pulling him from the water.
“Those actions of those young men are brave under the circumstances and very confronting injuries for those boys to see,” Superintendent Joseph McNulty said.
News media reported the boy lost both legs in the attack. In a separate statement, McNulty said, “He’s in for the fight of his life now, and the actions of emergency services yesterday gave him that chance.”
Around noon on Monday, an 11-year-old boy escaped uninjured after a shark knocked him off his surfboard and bit a chunk out of it at Dee Why Beach, north of Manly. Later that day, at about 6:20 p.m., a surfer in his 20s was bitten on the leg at North Steyne Beach in Manly and was taken to hospital in critical condition.
Emergency services said bystanders helped keep the injured man alive until paramedics arrived. Eyewitness Max White told ABC another surfer used a surfboard leg rope as a makeshift tourniquet.
“He was breathing, but he was unconscious, and we just ... tried to keep him awake, as well as all the other people around us. Everyone was involved,” White said.
All three Sydney beaches where attacks occurred have some form of shark protection netting, though authorities said it was not immediately clear where the incidents happened in relation to the nets.
Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce said the scene of the latest attack was isolated and did not have shark netting.
In response, beaches along New South Wales’ northern coast and Sydney’s northern beaches were closed on Tuesday, with authorities saying closures would remain in place for at least 48 hours. Electronic drumlines that alert authorities when a large shark takes bait were deployed off the Sydney coast.
Officials warned that recent rainfall had left coastal waters murky, increasing the risk of bull shark attacks. Bull sharks are responsible for most attacks around Sydney and are known to thrive in brackish water.
“If anyone’s thinking of heading into the surf this morning anywhere along the northern beaches, think again. We have such poor water quality that’s really conducive to some bull shark activity,” Pearce said.
“If you’re thinking about going for a swim, just go to a local pool because at this stage, we’re advising that beaches are unsafe,” he added.
Dee Why Beach is close to the site where a 57-year-old surfer was killed by a suspected great white shark last September. In November, a 25-year-old Swiss tourist was killed and her partner seriously injured while swimming off a national park north of Sydney.
Australia records about 20 shark attacks each year, with fewer than three resulting in fatalities, according to data from conservation groups — figures that are far lower than the number of drownings on the country’s beaches.