A radio news reporter has described the chilling moment he heard screams of 'he's bleeding out' and saw the waves turn red during a shark attack at a popular Sydney beach, one of four such incidents to rock the New South Wales coast in a matter of days.
A Fateful Warning and a Grisly Discovery
Max White, a reporter for Radio 2GB, had planned to go surfing at Manly Beach just after 6pm on Monday evening. His plans changed when he met two friends on the promenade who urgently warned him against entering the water, telling him, "No, don't go out, you're going to get done by a shark." Their warning came in the wake of two other serious shark encounters in the Sydney area within the previous 48 hours.
About twenty minutes later, two French tourists ran up to White and his friends in a state of panic. They screamed that a man in the water was "bleeding out." Looking out to sea, White witnessed the horrifying scene. "As he sort of went over a wave, you could just see the pool of blood in the water," he recounted to breakfast host Ben Fordham on Tuesday. "No matter how murky the water was, the wave was red."
Heroic Rescue and a Critical Condition
The victim was Andre de Ruyter, a 27-year-old musician. Two surfers, identified as Eduardo and Ash, bravely paddled the injured man back to the shore. While one of White's friends used a rope from a car to fashion a tourniquet for De Ruyter's leg, White himself tried to keep the unconscious man awake. Emergency services arrived before 6:30pm and rushed De Ruyter to hospital with serious leg injuries, where he remains in a critical condition.
This attack followed two others over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, 12-year-old Nico Antic was critically injured by a bull shark while rock jumping with friends at Nielsen Park in Sydney Harbour. He was airlifted to hospital after a friend dragged him to safety. Family friends have since confirmed his leg injuries are "catastrophic" and "life-threatening." Earlier on Monday, an 11-year-old boy had a surfboard bitten by a shark at Dee Why beach, near Manly.
A 'Perfect Storm' and Ongoing Warnings
The NSW coast was struck by a fourth attack on Tuesday, when a 39-year-old man was bitten by a bull shark at Point Plomer, near Port Macquarie. The shark bit through his wetsuit and damaged his board; the man drove himself to Kempsey District Hospital.
Authorities have linked the spike in activity to recent heavy rainfall. Superintendent Joseph McNulty stated that extra fresh water in the harbour, combined with splashing from people jumping off rocks, created a "perfect storm" for Sunday's attack. Police have urged people to avoid swimming in murky, low-visibility water. Heavy swell has also hampered the operation of smart drumlines used to monitor shark activity along the coast.
Max White, who never thought a shark attack would happen at Manly, said he won't be returning to the water for several weeks.
