Great white shark ‘winked at me’ as it bit my leg off, says surfer
Mel Ismail had been surfing near Geraldton, in western Australia, when he was attacked - ABC News
An Australian surfer said a large shark “winked” at him as it tore his leg off.
Mel Ismail came face-to-face with the shark while surfing near Geraldton, western Australia, last month.
He had been waiting to catch a wave and had just seen a pod of dolphins when the shark came from nowhere and knocked him off his surfboard.
Mr Ismail, a 56-year-old firefighter, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “I thought I got hit by a dolphin, initially. And suddenly, bang – something grabbed me and dragged me down into the water, and I knew it was a shark.
“I saw its eye… a big black eye. But it’s winking back at me – I was trying to get my fingers in its eye and just pushing its eye as I was being dragged. I personally reckon it gave me the wink, and then shut my leg off, and I knew it had taken my leg.
“It was just a numbness, a sensation like ‘hey, something’s missing’. I thought, ‘he’s coming back for more – I need to get out of here’.”
Sharks do not blink like humans, but some species can appear to do so through a protective membrane that looks similar to an eyelid.
Mel Ismail had his leg torn off by the shark - ABC News
Bleeding profusely, Mr Ismail managed to grab his surfboard and catch a wave that took him around 18 metres closer to the beach.
Shannan Dunn, a surfer, saw Mr Ismail and went into the water to help him, managing to get him safely ashore.
Mr Dunn said: “His board was about five metres away, and he had his arm up. Then it only took a couple of seconds and I saw the blood all around him. He had lost his foot from just above his ankle. He… looked like he could fade out at any moment.”
Another passer-by made a makeshift tourniquet for Mr Ismail using a surfboard leg cord and then drove him down the beach to an ambulance.
Mr Ismail’s partner, Kylie Fleay, who works at the local hospital in Geraldton, was manning the switchboard at the time of the attack. Doctors told her that he had been attacked.
Ms Fleay initially assumed the attack might not have been serious. She said: “I thought, you know, shark attack, it’s just had a little nibble of him.”
However, when she saw him he was grey from blood loss. She said: “First thing he says, he goes, ‘I’m going to have to be a bodyboarder now’. It just amazes me what he went through and survived. That sucker wasn’t going to take him.”
Officials are analysing DNA from Mr Ismail’s surfboard and his wetsuit to establish what species the shark was.
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Source: Crime