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A Victorian teenager has told of how he fought off a shark when he and his friend were swimming at a beach off the Bellarine Peninsula.
A bandaged Jack Shaw, 15, returned to school today after battling a shark at an Ocean Grove beach, just south of Geelong, about 7pm yesterday.
He and friend Tiarna, also 15, were swimming in neck-deep water when they came across what is believed to have been a reef shark or bronze whaler.
“I turned around, it got me on the back and then I said, ‘swim!’ and tried as fast as we could to get back in to shore,” he said.
Jack suffered a centimetre-deep gash and bite marks to his back.
Tiarna suffered a cut to her hand and a wound on her calf.
“She looked at it and it was a shark,” he said.
“So I did my best to get it off there, so I was smacking at it, trying to get it off.”
Jack said the thoughts, “get the shark, get it off, get out of the water,” were rushing through his mind.
Off-duty lifeguards ran to the pair’s aid as they reached the shore.
However, the Hobbs family were on the scene first after they noticed the commotion in the water.
Mum Dianne Hobbs, who is a trauma nurse, used towels to stop Tiarna’s leg bleeding.
Tiarna is still in Geelong Hospital tonight after having surgery this afternoon.
Jack said his school friends did not believe what happened to him until they saw the bite marks on his back.
Pieter Wildekamp from the Victorian Fisheries Authority has said shark attacks in Victoria are very uncommon.
“We haven’t had a significant shark attack in over 40 years,” he said.
The Ocean Grove because was temporarily closed as authorities searched for the shark, but it has now reopened.
Source: 9News
