A shark mauled a female swimmer in the first attack in Sydney Harbour in 15 years, officials said Tuesday, sending her to the hospital with a “serious” leg injury.
The predator struck Monday evening as the woman swam off a dock in Elizabeth Bay, less than two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the Sydney Opera House, according to police.
According to New South Wales police, the woman sustained “serious injury to her right leg”.
It was the first shark attack in Sydney Harbour since February 2009, when an Australian naval diver battled off a bull shark that bit him in the arm and leg near Woolloomooloo Bay.
Neighbours raced to assist the Elizabeth Bay victim, who was identified by the Sydney Morning Herald as 29-year-old Lauren O’Neill, an avid kayaker.
“I returned home from work and sat on the couch. “I heard a soft yell for help right outside the window,” adjacent resident Michael Porter told reporters.
Outside, he spotted a woman attempting to climb a ladder out of the harbour waters.
“Behind her was her leg, which was limp and all completely open and full of dark red blood behind her,” Porter went on to say.
“She had obviously been mauled extremely badly by whatever shark it was that got her,” he went on to say.
“We have always worried and known about sharks in the harbour,” he went on to say. “It’s only now that it feels very real.”
A veterinarian residing nearby provided first help.
The woman was in stable condition in intensive care at St Vincent’s Hospital, according to a hospital representative.
She was supposed to have surgery during the day.
Shark expert Amy Smoothey verified that “a bull shark was likely responsible” after analyzing the shark bite and photographs provided by officials.
Sharks are “more actively feeding” in low light at dawn and twilight, she told national broadcaster ABC, making it “potentially a high-risk time to be swimming”.
Since 2009, scientists have tagged 87 huge bull sharks in Sydney Harbour, according to Smoothey of the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries.
Tagging revealed that bull shark numbers in the harbour were at their peak in the Australian summer months of January and February, she explained.
“Shark bites are really rare although they are very tragic when they do occur and my thoughts are with the victim,” he said.
“There are very few interactions that occur in our enclosed waterways but we know that bull sharks are one of the top three species involved in shark bites.”
In February 2022, 35-year-old British diving instructor Simon Nellis was killed off Sydney’s coastal beach Little Bay in the city’s first fatal attack since 1963.