By Jordan Baker and Angus Thomson
As soon as she heard the screams – “Shark attack! Shark attack” – Elizabeth Bay resident and vet Fiona Crago ran to her bathroom, grabbed the two compression bandages her wife happened to buy earlier that day, and headed to the wharf.
Her neighbour Lauren O’Neill was lying there. The 29-year-old had been swimming out to a boat when a shark mauled her leg. She’d managed to get herself to a ladder as neighbours rushed to help, but she was in shock and bleeding profusely.
Shark attack victim Lauren O’Neill is treated by paramedics after being bitten at Elizabeth Bay, and (left) with her kayak near the scene of the attack.Credit: Tim Levy, Wolter Peeters
The injury was severe and a bone was broken. Crago’s training kicked in. “I just focused on what I had to do, which was to stem the blood flow and bandage the leg as best I could with what I had, and put a tourniquet on.”
There was blood in the water and on the wharf. O’Neill began drifting into unconsciousness, Crago said. “But because people around her were reassuring her, she did remain conscious for the whole ordeal. She was so brave. She was so polite. She was saying ‘thank you’.”
Vet Fiona Crago treated Sydney Harbour shark attack victim Lauren O’Neill.
Another neighbour, Michael Porter, also heard a muffled cry for help just before 8pm on Monday. He looked out of the window to see O’Neill clinging to a ladder on the wharf, trying to climb up as she dragged her bleeding leg, “which was completely open and full of dark red blood”, he said.
He called paramedics as neighbours rushed downstairs with towels to stop the bleeding. He, too, commented on O’Neill’s bravery. “It was surreal, we’ve always been worried and known about sharks in the harbour,” he said. “It’s only now that it feels very real.”
O’Neill, a microbiologist, was in a stable condition at St Vincent’s Hospital on Tuesday evening. Nine News reported that surgery had been successful and doctors were confident they would be able to save her leg.
Witnesses say she had been swimming around moored boats outside the netted ocean pool next to her Billyard Avenue studio when the attack occurred.
The Department of Primary Industries believes the attack was from a bull shark, based on photographs of the bite marks. Of 43 shark attacks in Sydney Harbour between 1852 and 2014, all but one were attributed to a bull shark.
Sydney Harbour is a key habitat for bull sharks, which live in warm shallow waters and eat mostly fish. Tracking shows they frequent all areas of the harbour, including the Parramatta River. About eight have been detected off coastal beaches in the past week.
“Bull sharks are especially numerous when water temperature is around 22 degrees, which is close to the average water temperature across Sydney at the moment,” said Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty. They can grow up to 3.5 metres and weigh 300 kilograms.
A bull shark being tagged in Sydney Harbour by the NSW Department of Primary Industries.
The most recent significant attack inside the harbour was in 2009, when navy clearance diver Paul de Gelder lost an arm and a leg after being bitten by a bull shark at Woolloomooloo Bay. He described the feeling as being torn apart and drowning at the same time.
Bull sharks swim in slightly deeper water during the day, and shallower water when the light is low, so swimmers are advised to avoid dawn, dusk and night, as well as dirty water. They are often present in areas with depths less than five metres and near steep drop-offs.
Crago said the experience did not change the way she viewed sharks – “sharks are part of this habitat, they belong in water” – but it would change her swimming habits.
“I don’t swim outside the net, although I have jumped off boats in Sydney Harbour and I probably will rethink that,” she told the Ten Network.
“I think it is a good reminder to people that they do need to be careful, especially at dawn and dusk. I probably will still swim in netted areas, but yes, it was quite shocking and definitely will be a reminder for other people to respect that environment out there.”
She rejected suggestions that she was exceptionally brave. “I’m in no way heroic. I just did my job and what I was trained to do.”
Sydney’s last fatal shark attack was in 2022, when diving instructor Simon Nellist was killed by a great white near Little Bay.
With Laura Chung, Jessica McSweeney and Clare Sibthorpe
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