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08/14/2020 - Chantelle Doyle 23 yr - Australia

We list all 2020 Shark Attacks Latest Recent Shark Attacks 2020 or Attack these include attacks and other shark related incidents for ocean goers safety...
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alb
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Re: 08/14/2020 - Chantelle Doyle 23 yr - Australia

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NSW shark attack survivor recalls ordeal

A Sydney woman who survived a high-profile shark attack is now raising money to protect the apex predators.

Chantelle Doyle, 35, is recovering in Sydney's Northern Beaches hospital after she was mauled off the city's Shelley Beach on August 15.

The environmental scientist, who was bitten on her right calf and the back of her thigh, said she knew immediately she had been hit by a whale or shark.

"I called out, 'Shark, shark'," Ms Doyle told Nine News on Tuesday.

"Once I was on the board I realised 'I'm probably on my own here. I don't know really how this is going to go down. I think this is maybe it for me'."

The mother-of-one felt the shark, a two-metre juvenile great white, grab at her leg and described it as "a teenage boy at the pantry".

Her partner Mark Rapley jumped into the water and unleashed a flurry of punches on the shark until it let go of her leg, much to her surprise.

"I just went, 'What the hell are you doing'," Ms Doyle said.

Unable to feel her leg, she was flown to Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital where she underwent surgery.

Ms Doyle said her stitched leg resembled a road map and knows it will be some time before she regains feeling, but considers herself lucky.

"It could have gone so differently," she said.

Rather than curse the shark, she has set up an online fundraising effort called Punching For Healthy Oceans which has so far raised more than $8500 for the Australian Marine Conservation Society.

"Healthy oceans mean a better future for everyone and that relies on apex predators - sharks," the page reads.
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alb
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Re: 08/14/2020 - Chantelle Doyle 23 yr - Australia

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Mark Rapley battled a great white shark to save his wife’s life Aug. 15 in New South Wales.

They were surfing at Shelly Beach around 9:30 a.m. when his wife, Chantelle Doyle, was attacked by a 10-foot white shark while sitting on her board in shallow surf.

“It hit her with a force and threw her off the board,” Rapley told 9News. He immediately sprang into action and swam toward his wife.

“When you see the mother of your child and your support, everything you are, you just react,” he said.

Once he arrived at his wife’s side, he saw the shark’s mouth on her right calf. His immediate response was to get the shark off her calf and he began fighting the shark.

“I was trying to leverage punches down onto it,” he said, adding that “It feels like you’re punching a brick wall.”

Jed Toohey, one witness to the attack, said Rapley put his life at risk to save his partner. “If he hadn’t put his own life at risk, [the shark] would have been strong enough to take her out to sea.”

Once the shark released its grip, Rapley assisted his 23-year-old wife to shore with the help of several locals.


With gaping wounds on her calf and thigh, Rapley said his wife was incredibly strong and paddled 16-yards back to shore.

Once the group made it back to the beach, several of the surfers carried Doyle on a long board and, at one point, slipped. Doyle joked with her rescuers that she only weighed 132 pounds and that her burley rescuers lifted more than that at the gym.

The mother of one remained calm during the ordeal, and was taken to the Port Macquarie Base Hospital before being flown to Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital where she had surgery.

Witnesses said a shark was spotted swimming up and down the beach and was seen biting the empty surfboard.

The beach was closed for the day as lifesavers scoured the area with jet skis and drones to confirm if the shark was still nearby.

9News.
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alb
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08/14/2020 - Chantelle Doyle 23 yr - Australia

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Port Macquarie Shark Attacks Shelly Beach Shark Attacks Australia Shark Attack Surfing Shark Attacks Surfer Attacked by Shark
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Port Macquarie shark attack: surfer comes to rescue of woman mauled at NSW mid-north coast

Man punches shark repeatedly until it lets woman’s leg go in attack off Shelly Beach

A 35-year-old woman has been taken to hospital with serious injuries after she was mauled by a shark near Port Macquarie on NSW’s mid-north coast. Photograph: Cousteau Society/Getty Images

A surfer has come to the rescue of a woman being mauled by a great white shark near Port Macquarie on New South Wales’s mid-north coast, jumping on the shark and punching it repeatedly until it let her go.

Paramedics were called to Shelly Beach about 9.30am on Saturday after the woman was attacked while surfing.

The 35-year-old was rushed to Port Macquarie base hospital with serious leg injuries, but has since been flown to Newcastle where she will undergo surgery.

Police said the woman and a man were surfing when she was bitten on the right calf and the back of her thigh. Her companion was forced to punch the 2-3 metre juvenile white shark until it let go.
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“The shark wouldn’t release her and so a nearby surfer paddled over and essentially jumped on the shark and started hitting it to make it release,” the Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive, Steven Pearce, said.

A surfer himself, Pearce says it was a “tremendous act of bravery”.

“We’ve had some really serious and tragic shark encounters over the past couple of months along the NSW coastline so to paddle out of your own safety zone, in to an area where you know there is a large shark, I think is amazing.”

Pearce is urging swimmers and surfers to be “shark smart” as summer approaches, but says the number of daylight attacks in recent times concerns him.

“As we’ve seen this morning, there are occasions where people can be shark smart and they think they’re doing all the right things, but unfortunately, they’re just in that wrong place at the wrong time.”

Three paramedic crews and a specialist medical team in the Westpac Helicopter responded to the incident, which a NSW Ambulance spokesman said is the third serious shark attack on the north coast in the past few months.

Beaches in Port Macquarie have been closed for 24 hours as authorities work to identify the species of the shark.

Earlier reports had said the woman was 20.

There have been five fatal shark attacks in Australian waters in 2020.

One of them was in Western Australia in January, when experienced diver Gary Johnson, 57, was taken near Cull Island, close to West Beach in Esperance.

In July, a 10-year-old boy suffered shock and cuts when a shark ripped him from a fishing boat about 5km offshore from Stanley in north-west Tasmania.

https://www.theguardian.com
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