Sydney:
A woman was hospitalized after a shark attack while swimming in Sydney Harbor left her with “serious” leg injuries, officials and media said on Tuesday. Police said the predator attacked the woman on Monday night as she swam out of a pier in Elizabeth Bay, less than two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the iconic Sydney Opera House.
The woman suffered “serious injuries to her right leg”, New South Wales Police said in a statement.
It was the first shark attack in Sydney Harbor since 2009, when an Australian navy diver fought off a bull shark that bit him on the arm and leg in Woolloomooloo Bay.
Neighbors rushed to the aid of the Elizabeth Bay victim, who was identified as 29-year-old Lauren O’Neill, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The report quoted one resident as saying he heard her “soft cries for help” from the window.
“She tried to crawl in and her legs were completely open and her back was filled with dark red blood,” resident Michael Porter said.
“It’s so surreal. We’ve been worried about and aware of sharks in the harbor… until now it feels very real.”
A veterinarian who lives nearby applied a tourniquet, the newspaper said.
Another witness told local news outlet OnScene Bondi: “She swam to the boat and on the way back, I think a bull shark bit her.”
“We ran out. My wife is a veterinarian and she basically put a bandage on it,” said the unnamed witness.
A hospital spokesman said the woman was in a stable condition in the intensive care unit at St Vincent’s Hospital.
She is expected to undergo surgery during the day.
In February 2002, 35-year-old British diving instructor Simon Nellis was eaten near Sydney’s Little Bay beach in the city’s first fatal attack since 1963.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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