An off-duty police officer has been credited with saving the life of a 23-year-old surfer bitten by a white shark on the Mid North Coast after using a dog leash as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding.
Kai McKenzie was flown to John Hunter Hospital without his right leg on Tuesday after bystanders and lifeguards at North Shore Beach in Port Macquarie stepped in to help the experienced surfer, who managed to catch a wave to shore despite his wounds.
Kirran Mowbray from NSW Ambulance said an off-duty police officer saw McKenzie paddling into shore and was the first to respond.
“He used his dog’s lead as a tourniquet and essentially saved his life,” she told Nine News.
Mowbray said McKenzie saw the shark in the water “and fought it off”.
“Then he’s caught a wave into shore, which is a pretty courageous thing to do,” she said. “[He’s] very lucky.”
Local lifeguards from a nearby beach arrived by jetski to help before NSW Ambulance arrived.
The surfboard in the back of an emergency vehicle at Port Macquarie on Tuesday.Credit: Nine News
“Lifeguards from Town Beach responded to a serious shark attack at around 11am this morning at North Shore Beach, where some members of public and a fellow surfer were rendering assistance by using makeshift tourniquets,” Port Macquarie Hastings ALS Lifeguards said in a statement.
Nearby beaches will remain closed for at least the next 24 hours.
McKenzie, a sponsored surfer, was in a serious but stable condition on Tuesday evening.
Images from the scene showed a surfboard with a bite taken from the board’s tail.
Shark biologists from the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development assessed photographs of the incident and determined that it was a white shark about 3 metres long.
The department set two additional drum lines and shark-monitoring drones were also deployed over the beach, a spokesperson said.
“Sharks can be more prevalent in an area due to a number of factors including weather and ocean conditions as well as the availability of food in the area,” the spokesperson said. “Our SMART drumline catches and the tagged shark detections show that white sharks are relatively more abundant on the NSW coast throughout winter and spring, and that bulls and tigers are relatively more abundant in summer and autumn.”
There have been 15 white sharks detected nearby in the past week. The most recent was a 2.5 metre shark around 7am on Tuesday morning.
Another local surfer, Toby Begg, suffered “life changing” injuries last September when a shark bit his legs and lower body about 150 metres off Lighthouse beach south of Port Macquarie.
The 44-year-old father tried to fight off the shark before swimming ashore. An off-duty doctor used a makeshift tourniquet to stem serious blood loss from Begg’s legs.
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