Shark assaults boy swimming in Sydney Harbor, leaving him in essential situation

A shark mauled a boy swimming in Sydney Harbor on Sunday, leaving him in a essential situation with severe leg accidents, authorities mentioned, marking at the very least the third shark assault globally in lower than a month.

The predator bit the boy, believed to be about 13 years outdated, throughout the late afternoon off Shark Beach, New South Wales state police mentioned.

“The injuries are consistent with what is believed to have been a large shark,” police said in a press release.

Officers pulled the boy from the water off the harbor seashore inside minutes of being alerted to the incident, police mentioned.

They gave the boy first support for “serious” leg accidents whereas he was aboard a police boat, making use of two medical tourniquets.

Paramedics transported him to Sydney Children’s Hospital, the place he was mentioned to be in a essential situation.

“Swimmers are advised to avoid entering nearby waters at this time,” police mentioned.

Shark Beach, in Sydney’s jap suburb of Vaucluse, was closed and police evacuated close by seashores within the harbor, the state authorities mentioned.

Wildlife consultants have been working to establish the shark species concerned, it mentioned in a press release.

“This is a tragic shark attack on a young boy having a swim on a Sunday afternoon near a harbor beach in Sydney’s east,” New South Wales Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty mentioned.

“Our thoughts are with the young boy and his family. I understand there were also other young people with him at the time of the attack, our thoughts are also with them.”

There have been greater than 1,280 shark incidents round Australia since 1791, of which greater than 250 resulted in demise, in line with a database of the predators’ encounters with people.

The International Shark Attack File, a database of world shark assaults run by the University of Florida, famous {that a} “disproportionate” quantity of individuals died from shark bites in Australia in 2023 in comparison with different international locations around the globe.

Increasingly crowded waters and rising ocean temperatures that seem like swaying sharks’ migratory patterns could also be contributing to an increase in assaults regardless of overfishing depleting some species, scientists say.

An awesome white shark mauled surfer Mercury Psillakis to demise at a preferred northern Sydney ocean seashore in September.

Two months later, a bull shark killed a lady swimming off a distant seashore north of Sydney.

The assault on the boy in Sydney Harbour is the third confirmed shark assault in lower than a month.

Less than two weeks in the past, 56-year-old girl from Minnesota died after a shark assault within the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

Earlier this month, authorities in California confirmed that 55-year-old Erica Fox died from a shark assault. She went lacking in Monterey Bay in late December. The coroner decided Fox died from “sharp and blunt force injuries and submersion in water due to a shark attack.”