SYDNEY - A woman was seriously injured in a shark attack while swimming at a Sydney beach on Saturday, authorities said, in the latest in a spate of shark attacks off Australia’s coast.
Emergency services were called to Coogee Beach in the east of Australia’s largest city in the morning on reports that the 35-year-old swimmer had been bitten by a large shark about 30 metres from the shore.
“The woman was pulled from the water by members of the public who commenced first aid,” police said in a statement, adding that the victim suffered serious arm and leg injuries.
“She has large flesh wounds to the leg and the arms that are going to require a lot of surgery,” New South Wales Ambulance inspector Mike Corlis told reporters at Coogee Beach.
Coogee Beach and others in the city’s Randwick Council area were closed for 24 hours following the attack.
“We’ll be working closely with the New South Wales government, awaiting instruction as to when it is safe to reopen,” council Mayor Dylan Parker told reporters.
A witness to the attack, Nicola Logan, told Reuters at Coogee Beach that she saw a “massive pool of blood” in the water, then “a lady kind of motioning to swim, lots of splashing, and then a ski paddler was out trying to bring her in”.
A week earlier, a man died after being attacked by a shark while fishing off the coast of Western Australia state, in the latest fatal incident.
Last month, a 39-year-old man died after being attacked while fishing on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Ten days earlier, a 38-year-old was fatally mauled off an island near Perth in Western Australia.
Dozens of beaches along Australia’s east coast, including in Sydney, were closed in January after four shark attacks in two days. Those followed heavy rain that created murky water, attracting sharks and reducing their visibility.
Most shark attacks occur along the east and southeast seaboard of Australia, which averages around 20 such incidents a year, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
