I am so proud of this woman! I dont know what I would do in that situation. Good for her for taking on the creature and living to tell her story!
'I fought off Great White shark'
October 16, 2007 03:00am
LINDA Whitehurst thought she was going to die when she was forced to fight off a great white shark at Byron Bay in NSW yesterday.
She was enjoying a morning paddlewith her husband Glen, when a shark attacked her surf ski, knocking her into the water.
"I thought this is it," she said.
"I thought my leg is gone, my ankle's gone, he's going to grab a leg."
But the 52-year-old sustained only a minor bite wound to her right wrist as she fought off what she described as a 4m-long, great white shark, using only her surf ski paddle.
Remarkably, Mr Whitehurst was not the only shark attack survivor who lived to tell their tale yesterday.
Spearfisherman Adam Wood also joined the exclusive club of survivors, when two mates stabbed and poked a bronze whaler as it shook his leg at Holmes Reef, 240km north of Cairns.
He received more than 50 stitches to reattach tendons and ligaments severed by a 30cm shark bite.
"I am lucky to be alive, they saved my life," Mr Wood said yesterday, speaking after Saturday's attack.
The Byron Bay escape occurred near a popular surfing spot called The Pass, just around the point from Wategos Beach which was closed last week because of a shark.
Ms Whitehurst was returning to Byron at 10.45am (AEST) after a one-hour paddle when the great white struck.
"We were just coming back in. We'd been out at Wategos, heading back towards the surf club and we'd just left The Pass," Ms Whitehurst said.
"Glen was about three metres from me to my right side and I just saw this big thing down in the water. I just turned my head and happened to see this big dark object coming back and I knew it was a shark."
Ms Whitehurst said she thought her number was up as she tumbled into the water. She said she decided to lash out at the shark, out of instinct.
"I was just screaming trying to scare the shark and I had my surf ski blade in my hands. I was just punching into the shark. I had my blade and I just kept punching, punching, punching," she said.
After fighting off the shark, Ms Whitehurst said her attention immediately turned to getting to safety.
"My ski was closer and I wanted to be straight on if the shark came back up again," she said.
"I got back up on my ski. My arm was just bleeding and I was thinking great, now he's really going to come back and get me.
"You just go. Your adrenalin is just being pumped through you so you just do anything."
Her husband Glen Whitehurst said he watched in horror as the shark latched on to his wife's surf ski.
"I had just looked around so I watched it hit," he said.
"I turned around and I watched it literally lift itself and the back of Linda's ski. It had the back of the ski in its mouth, gave it a shake and Linda got knocked off."
Northern NSW lifeguard co-ordinator Stephen Leahy said a shark spotted off the town's main beach about an hour after the attack was shepherded out to sea by a Brunswick Heads coastal patrol boat.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment