Australian Man Escapes Great White Shark | The Inertia

A Byron Bay local was hit by a great white shark at Iluka Beach on Sunday morning.

When Abe McGrath’s alarm went off in the early morning hours on Sunday, he probably woke up thinking about nothing other than surf. He was in the water at Iluka, a beach on the NSW north coast, before 6 am, watching the sun come up over a building swell at Main Beach. There was almost no one in the water, and the morning was beautiful. Then, soon after McGrath paddled out, he was hit by a 12-foot juvenile great white shark.

“He was laying on his board and got attacked from below really aggressively,” Bryce Cameron, who was in the area, told News.com.au. “The force of the attack snapped his board and the impact lifted him up.”

Thankfully, McGrath escaped serious injury. The shark snapped his board and took a chunk from his hip, but McGrath was able to paddle to shore under his own power. “Abe was left floating in the water with a couple of teeth marks on his body. He scrambled in the water and got washed in by the next wave,” Cameron explained. “He is pretty much the luckiest man on earth right now. He was lying on his board, but if he had been sitting on it he would have lost a leg.”

McGrath’s board was snapped in half. Image: News.com.au

According to Cameron, McGrath had a chance to identify the approximate size and type of shark. “He got a good look at it,” he said. “He said it was a 3.5m white pointer. In the big scheme of things, that is a juvenile but it is still big enough to kill.”

According to Elijah “Hobbit” Colbey, another surfer nearby at the time of the attack, “a good wave had just rolled past. We were both watching it, and then I looked back and saw Abe skimming across the water splashing.” McGrath immediately began yelling. Colby began paddling towards McGrath, expecting the worst. Once on land, though, it was apparent that McGrath’s injuries weren’t life-threatening. He was taken to the hospital and treated for his wounds.

Fonte: Australian Man Escapes Great White Shark | The Inertia
Australian Man Escapes Great White Shark | The Inertia