A young woman riding in a pool ring was bitten by a great white shark in Australia after she drifted offshore.
Jacquelin Morley, 20, was enjoying her day at Kelp Beds Beach in Wylie Bay, Western Australia Feb. 6, floating in a pool ring around noon with friends. Then she started to drift farther from shore.
Barry Brown and his brother watched Morley as she was slowly blown into deep water about 218 yards (200M) off the coast.
“Then we actually saw a figure under the [the float] and we weren’t quite sure whether it was a dolphin or what it was,” Brown told ABC News. Unbeknown to everyone, the shadow was an estimated 10- to 13- foot [3 to 4m] white shark.
“Then it knocked her off—we could see the shark’s tail come out of the water and into the air.”
Brown said Morley calmly began swimming on her back toward shore with one hand holding her side leaving a trail of blood in the water.
“The shark actually circled the [float] a couple of times and then took off into the blue,” Brown said.
Brown, an Esperance resident, was worried the shark might come back and swam out an estimated 16 to 21 yards [15 to 20m] to meet the injured girl.
Once on shore, he picked up Morley and ran up the beach where he was met by his girlfriend, who wrapped Morley’s wound with a towel. They hopped in a car with two other locals who Brown did not know but who carried them to the hospital.
He said Morley kept “a very cool head” during the ride. Once they arrived at the hospital, Morley was airlifted to Perth by the Royal Flying Doctor Service and was listed in serious but stable condition.
“As shark bites go, it was not a 10 out of 10, but it was still one to make you think anything could happen here.”
The pool ring float was collected by the Department of Primary Industries and will be tested for traces of the shark’s DNA. A 10 foot (3.3m) white shark was detected in the Kelp Beds at 12:30 p.m.
The area has had some serious shark attacks in the past.
In October 2020, Andrew Sharpe was killed in a shark attack.
In 2017 Laeticia Brouwer, 17, was bitten on the leg and died, and surfer Sean Pollard lost an arm and hand to a shark in 2014 while surfing the break.
Local residents have called for more signage in the area to warn of the possibility of shark encounters.
The location has been marked on the 2022 Shark Attack Map
