Shark k!lls woman and seriously wounds another swimmer at Australian beach

A shark k!lled a woman and seriously wounded a man taking an early morning swim with her at a national park beach on Australias east coast on Thursday, Nov. 27, police said.  Experts say a shark rarely attacks more than one person and an investigation is now underway to determine what transpired.  The attack occurred at Crowdy Bay National Park, which is known for beach camping, fishing spots and hiking tracks 224 miles north of Sydney. Beaches in the area and to the north of the attack were closed to swimmers indefinitely, Police Chief Insp. Timothy Bayly said. Emergency services were called to Kylies Beach following reports that two people in their mid-20s had been bitten by a shark at 6:30 a.m., Bayly said. Bayly declined to detail the injuries or the circumstances of the attack.  At this stage, all Im prepared to say is they were known to each other and they were going for a swim and the shark attacked, Bayly told reporters.  A bystander helped the pair on the beach before ambulance paramedics arrived, but the woman d!ed at the scene.  The man was flown by helicopter to a hospital, and paramedic Josh Smyth said the mans condition was serious but stable. Smyth said the bystanders first aid might have prevented a double fatality.  I just really need to have a shoutout to the bystander on the beach who put a makeshift tourniquet on the males leg which obviously potentially saved his life and allowed New South Wales Ambulance paramedics to get to him and render first aid, Smyth told reporters.  The identities of the man and woman were not released. Media reports said they were European tourists.  Bayly said police would work with experts to determine the species of the shark responsible. Five drumlines were deployed off Kylies Beach in an attempt to catch the shark, the state government said. Drumlines are already in place to the north at Port Macquarie and to the south at Forster to reduce shark numbers.  Gavin Naylor, director of the University of Floridas shark research program and manager of the International Shark Attack File database, said a single shark attacking more than one person was exceptionally rare.  It is very unusual. Individual shark attacks are rare. And shark attacks on two people by the same individual is not unheard of, but its very rare, Naylor said. Naylor said he would need to know details of the sequence of the sharks behavior on Thursday to understand what had motivated it to bite. The context of the attack was also important, such as the size of the shark and whether other prey was in its vicinity. Sometimes younger sharks are less judicious and they can make mistakes. Where sharks are close to seal colonies and feeding, the probability (of attack) is higher, Naylor said.  The few bites that we do have where a single shark has bitten multiple people, its usually tiger sharks. Weve never seen white sharks do that unless somebodys heroically jumping in the way, he added.The post Shark k!lls woman and seriously wounds another swimmer at Australian beach appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.