Diver 'blinded by own blood'
2006-01-16 08:03
Perth - An Australian scuba diver has described how he was blinded by his own blood as he hid in a reef from a huge great white shark as it returned repeatedly after savaging his arm.
"I just felt like I'd been hit by a truck on the side... and there was a very large shark head hanging off my arm, trying to chew it," Bernie Williams told reporters.
The 46-year-old father of three was diving for crayfish about five kilometres off a popular Perth beach in Western Australia when he was attacked on Sunday.
The 3.5-metre great white shark took Williams for a "bit of a ride" before releasing him to try to take another bite, giving him the opportunity to dive for the ocean floor and hide in a crevice, he said.
"I went straight to the bottom and it circled around and came back and it kept going around in circles," Williams told The Australian
He used his speargun to jab the shark in the nose, "but it was like jabbing a lump of steel," he said. "I kept losing that much blood in the water that I kept losing sight of it," he said.
the shark disappeared when his two diving companions appeared, one of who was wearing an electronic shark repellent device, and a fishing boat rescued all three.
Williams was rushed to hospital with a gashed arm and was said Monday to be in a stable condition.
He said the shark was the biggest he had seen in 20 years of diving but he would continue to dive - after investing in an electronic shark repellent.
The attack on Williams came just a week after a 21-year-old Australian woman was torn to pieces in a shark attack at a popular tourist beach on North Stradbroke Island on the east coast.
The woman, Sarah Wiley, was the tenth person to be killed by sharks in Australia since 2000.