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Off-duty nurses save life of Aussie shark attack victim

Xinhua, March 31, 2016 Adjust font size:

An Aussie surfer is lucky to be alive after being mauled by a shark on Australia's south eastern coastline as a friend bravely paddled out to rescue him and two off-duty nurses were on the scene.

Two nurses used the 22-year-old Australian surfer's leg rope as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding after a shark - likely a great white or bronze whaler - ripped his left tight and hand at dusk on Wednesday on the southern New South Wales state coastline, before being airlifted to hospital in southern Sydney.

"He could have bled to death before we arrived on scene," Ambulance New South Wales district officer Inspector Terry Morrow told local media on Thursday.

"He was very lucky the members of the public were there and acted as they did. They saved his life, to tell you the truth."

The 22-year-old becomes the latest victim in a string of shark attacks on Australia's east coast after a Japanese surfer died in February 2015 from a shark attack in the Ballina a area on the far north coast of New South Wales state.

In 2015, 33 people were attacked by sharks, both provoked and unprovoked, resulting in two fatalities and 23 serious injuries, according to the Australian Shark Attack File. The second fatality involved a hookah diver in Tasmania.

The NSW state authorities have invested 16 million Australian dollars into protecting beachgoers from sharks along the coastline, including aerial surveillance and shark meshing programs between Newcastle and Wollongong beaches, north and south of Sydney.

In addition, "listening stations" using 4G technology to track tagged sharks along the NSW north and mid-north coasts, the regions where most attacks have occurred, will also be set up. Endit