IT was all over in a matter of seconds, but Ben Bull will remember his painful encounter with a bronze whaler shark for the rest of his life.
The Naracoorte local is still recovering from a savage New Year’s Eve shark attack near Kingston which left him with nearly 40 stitches in his right leg.
The 27-year-old lost more than a litre of blood as his wife Sharon and friend Luke Williams drove him for half an hour to Kingston Hospital.
The bronze whaler shark grabbed his leg while he was fishing for mulloway and shark on the Coorong 15km north of Kingston at 11pm on New Year’s Eve.
Waist deep in water, the keen fisherman had cast his line and had begun walking back through the first channel. Before he reached the shore, the shark “grabbed on...and as he grabbed on...he started shaking my leg”.
Ben turned to see the 1.8m shark behind him.
“As he let go I saw the tail fin move away.”
The attack left Ben with a gaping wound in his lower leg. Sharon and friend “Willo” were sitting on the shore when the drama unfolded.
“It bit me, shook me and within a minute I was back into shore and calling out for help,” Ben recalled. “We were in the car within four minutes...it was very quick.”
On the drive to Kingston, he said: “I was bleeding all over Willo’s car. The blood soaked through two towels, plus what was on the beach. It was easily a litre.”
Sharon, a nurse, held Ben’s leg all the way into town.
After initial treatment at Kingston Soldiers Memorial Hospital, Ben was transferred to Mount Gambier where he had surgery and nearly 40 stitches and spent three days recovering.
Ben and Sharon said the sea off the Coorong had been unusually warm on the night, and there had been an increase in recent shark sightings.
“The water was so warm that night...warmer than usual,” Sharon said. “Bronzies are being caught all along there this summer.”
The pair have delayed a planned move to Bunbury, WA, with their three-year-old daughter Sienna until early February when Ben expects to have full use of his leg again.
He admitted the attack had made him cautious about fishing along the Coorong.
“I’m a little bit nervous about going back in the water.”
Kingston local Craig Lawrie has nearly 34 years in the fishing industry and said bronze whaler sharks were the most common in the shallow surf of the Coorong.
The gummy shark is also regularly seen.
“The bronzies like the surf, they play around and feed,” he said.
“They’ve been known to be around there for years - normally just the small ones but you can get big ones.”
Although there have been several shark sightings around Kingston and Robe this summer - and many sharks being caught close to shore around the country - the cray and shark fisherman said the attack was the first one he had heard of in the local area.
“I’ve been here for a long time and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a shark attack down here.
“I’ve done a lot of swimming and a lot of diving...and you don’t see many around...but they won’t be far from you.”
Craig said the Coorong was popular for mulloway, shark and stingray fishing.
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