A South Australian man is feared dead, after being attacked by a shark while surfing, local media reported, today.
The 46-year-old man was surfing at a popular beach on the Great Australian Bight, more than 350 km west of Adelaide, the capital city of the Australian state of South Australia (SA), when he was attacked, at approximately 10.00 a.m. local time, yesterday.
Police and the State Emergency Service (SES) were called to the spot by multiple witnesses to the attack, and more than half a dozen boats and jet skis were deployed to search the area all day, before resuming today.
Authorities today confirmed, they recovered the man’s surfboard.
Trevlyn Smith, the local SES unit manager, said, up to 16 fellow surfers witnessed the attack.
“There were obviously several people in the water, and from what I hear, there were witnesses that saw evidence of the attack,” he was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“We’ve got a missing person, they’ve already got the surfboard, we’re just looking for anything that relates to that person.”
The Great Australian Bight spans more than 1,000 km and is notorious for large shark populations, including great white sharks.
Jaiden Millar, 22, was in the water surfing yesterday, when the man was attacked.
He described the incident as tragic.
“It was such a confronting incident. I saw his board tombstoning, which means he’s underwater and his board’s getting dragged under … trying to fight his way back up to the surface,” he told News Corp Australia.
“It’s something that all surfers think about, but you never want it to happen to anyone, and it’s something that you never want to experience. I’m still in a lot of shock and it hasn’t quite hit me yet
Source: Nam News Network