A Mollymook teenager injured in a shark attack on Friday afternoon intentionally went into the water in the hope of filming the shark, his friend has told Fairfax Media.
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Sam Smith, 17, was taken to hospital with lacerations to his hand and wrist after spearfishing with friend Luke Sisinni at Bannister Head about midday.
Luke said he and Sam made films while spearfishing, and just before lunchtime on Friday Sam saw a shark “so he went down to film it”.
“He said it spun around and started coming for him, so he stabbed it with his spear to try and scare it off, but it just went ballistic and bit him,” Luke said.
He said he did not see the attack, but swam over towards Sam when he heard movement “and he came up screaming saying ‘I got bitten by a shark’.”
Sam said the shark was about 1.5 metres long.
“I saw one the other week about the same, a bronze whaler, but that didn’t bite me, thankfully,” Luke said.
The attack was about two kilometres from where thousands of people were competing in the NSW Surf Life Saving country championships at Mollymook Beach.
Shark patrols around the championships were stepped up and Narrawallee Beach was closed on Friday afternoon.
Paramedics treated Sam in the car park beside Bannister Lodge, before taking him to Milton Hospital.
He was then airlifted to Sydney for specialist treatment.
Another Mollymook spearfisher Mark Brayne said he had an encounter with a shark last week.
He said he and his uncle were spearing north of Bannister Head when he went down for a shot at a fish in about 12 metres of water, and felt something tugging on his buoy line.
“I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then I speared a fish and came back up and was in the process of loading my gun again and I felt something pull quite hard on my buoy line and I looked back in the water and I could just see this big splash, crazy splashing around.
“Then my gun and my buoy line just got ripped out of my hands and I watched them disappear,” he said.
“In the kerfuffle my snorkel got ripped off my head.”
He swam over to his uncle and the pair endured “a pretty nerve-wracking swim” back to the boat about 300 metres away.
Mark said while he did not see the shark, “it was big enough to take my gun off me, and big enough to drag 15kg or 20kg of fish away from me.”
Bendigo Bank Aerial Patrol general manager Harry Mitchell said the frequency of shark sightings ‘‘right along the coast’’ had been far greater than in the past five to six years.
