Swimmer attacked by shark in Sydney Harbour

A woman bitten by a shark in Sydney Harbour was likely saved by a local vet who used bandages bought earlier that day to stop the bleeding, witnesses have said.

The woman, named locally as Lauren O’Neill, was swimming off a private wharf in Elizabeth Bay on Monday evening when she was attacked.

Police in New South Wales state said the 29-year-old suffered a “serious injury” to her right leg during the attack, believed to have been carried out by a bull shark.

According to local media, she was helped by residents in the area, including Michael Porter and local vet Fiona Crago, who had just purchased a set of bandages, which she used to create a tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

“The fact she had the bandages, it’s just such a fluke,” Mr Porter told the Australian news website, news.com.au.

“So lucky. I’m not sure that she would have survived without Fiona. There was just so much blood loss.”

The incident happened about 20 metres from a jetty in Elizabeth Bay, an upmarket inner-city suburb to the east of the city’s central business district.

While shark sightings along Sydney’s ocean-facing beaches are common, attacks in its iconic harbour are rare.

“Shark bites are really rare [here]… the last incident that occurred in Sydney Harbour was in 2009,” Amy Smoothey, senior shark scientist at the New South Wales department of primary industries, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Based on the bite patterns and images provided, Ms O’Neill was likely attacked by a bull shark, she said.

Known for their aggressive, territorial nature, bull sharks are large and usually found in warm, shallow waters, but can survive in fresh waters and are known to swim up rivers.

Bull sharks, great whites, and tiger sharks are responsible for most of the recorded unprovoked attacks on humans.

Sydney Harbour is known to be an important habitat for bull sharks and their young.

In 2009, an Australian navy clearance diver was mauled by a bull shark during a training exercise in the harbour. The shark tore off his arm and part of his leg.

In February 2022, a swimmer at a Sydney beach died after being attacked by what witnesses described as a large great white shark.

It was Sydney’s first fatal shark attack since 1963.

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Despite its 16,000 miles of coastline and famous beach culture, there are more unprovoked shark attacks reported in the US than in Australia.

There were 455 recorded attacks in the US compared with 161 in Australia between 2011 and 2020, according to data from AustraliaWide First Aid

However, according to the data, Australia has considerably more fatal attacks, with 22 compared to seven over the same period.

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