Tim Roberts was diving off Trigg Beach in Western Australia on December 14 when he was bitten by what he believes was a shark.
The sixty-one-year-old was bitten on the left foot. The shark’s teeth penetrated his fin leaving four puncture wounds and possibly severing a small artery.
“I swam like crazy after I felt that,” he told Perth Now. “I was waiting for the inevitable big bite, but it never happened.”
As he was swimming back to shore, the fear of a second bite was still on his mind. “That was the worst part, that feeling like your legs are going like jelly,” he said.
Once he made it back to the beach, he noticed the wound was bleeding profusely and he had left a blood trail to the beach,
Roberts was able to use duck tape to wrap up the wound and then drive himself home on his motorcycle. Once at home, he wrapped the wound.
Roberts said he noticed an increase of sharks in the area. He thinks that fishermen cleaning dead fish on the beach are drawing sharks in. The unused fish parts could be washing into the water which would act like chum.
There have been a total of 97 shark attack bites in 2016. Eight of which were fatal; 43 were reported in the US, with 30 occurring in Florida. Twenty-three have occurred in Australia, three of which were fatal
All locations have been marked on the 2016 shark attack bites tracking map.
