Off-duty nurse John Neville was returning to shore after a swim Wednesday evening when he realised he was witnessing the aftermath of a shark attack about 200 metres down the beach.

“A surfer was kneeling in the water beside what looked like his surfboard, but it was actually his friend that he had saved,” said Mr Neville, a registered nurse at Shellharbour Hospital.

“He had an obvious shark bite to his leg. 

“The fleshy part of the inner palm had a distinct shark bite. It was torn away but still attached.

“To his credit, the friend started doing tourniquets.” 

The ragged ends of Mr Connellan’s own wetsuit were used in an initial attempt to stem his blood loss, said Mr Neville. 

Other surfers joined the first aid effort, volunteering their leg ropes as tourniquets.

“I said to them, ‘pull it tight. Tighter, tighter, tighter’, because the wound was on top of the leg and it’s very hard to stop arterial blood loss,” Mr Neville said. 

“We had to go right up to the upper left leg to get the tourniquet on because some of it was slipping off into the gash line.”

Mr Connellan remained conscious and responsive through the early stages of his ordeal, at one point complaining of stomach pain. Mr Neville paid tribute to the surfers who stayed at his side.

“They were seeing a friend who could potentially die, and yet they’re turning him [over] and putting on a tourniquet. They perfomred under pressure. 

“They were in shock and freaking out but they got on with saving this kid’s life. They were great.”