Chantelle Doyle: Port Macquarie shark attack victim reveals she is ‘paralysed’ below the knee
A Sydney woman who was attacked by a Great White earlier this month has revealed how she is “paralysed below the knee” following the incident in which her partner punched the shark in the face until it let her go. READ HER HARROWING ACCOUNT OF THE ATTACK.
Manly
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Doctors don’t know how many stitches it took to repair the torn and shredded tissue, muscles, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, nerves and gaping wounds in Chantelle Doyle’s leg after she was savaged by a Great White shark, but it’s “hundreds and hundreds”.
The 35-year-old from Cromer, was surfing off Shelly Beach at Port Macquarie, two weeks ago when she suffered a horrific attack by a 2.5m juvenile Great White.
She only escaped its clutches after her partner jumped in the water and repeatedly punched the shark in the face.
The mum of one initially underwent a seven hour operation at the John Hunter Hospital in
Newcastle, but is now at Northern Beaches Hospital, near where she lives, for further treatment.
There she has undergone two skin grafts and is awaiting a third skin graft to repair a bite-sized chunk missing from her right leg.
But her worst injury is the severing of nerves below her knee which has left her “effectively paralysed from the knee down”.
The nerves have been stitched together but it will take at least a year for them to regrow and then another year after that for doctors to know whether she will be able to use it again.
“I’ve been told the nerves grow one millimetre a day, so it will be 400 days before they grow back and two years before doctors can give me a prognosis,” Ms Doyle said.
“At the moment my leg is effectively paralysed from the knee down.
“I can’t feel anything from below the knee, but I am getting neuropathic pain, weird burning sensations and intense pins and needles.”
Ms Doyle told the Manly Daily about the extraordinary moment she realised she was being attacked by a shark and how her partner and fiance Mark Rapley, 40, a financial planner, paddled out and beat the animal off her with his fists.
“Suddenly something hit the board really hard and deliberately,” she said.
“I knew it wasn’t a dolphin.
“The force threw me up into the air and as I came down I could not see any grey under the water.
“I knew then it wasn’t a whale and that it must be a shark.
“As I landed in the water it immediately grabbed my right leg and I think I shouted, ‘Shark, shark, shark’.”
Ms Doyle said when the shark grabbed her, her partner was on the shore stretching.
“I thought, ‘Shit I’m alone, this is it’.”
She said she decided to fight back and swam three strokes back to the board before managing to pull herself up, along with the shark which was still attached to her leg.
By this time it had readjusted its grip a couple of times and was “gnawing” on her leg “like a dog with a bone”.
After that her memory comes and goes but she remembers seeing her partner’s face in the water coming towards her and thinking, “Get out of here, it’s going to get you”.
She said both her and her partner are uncomfortable with the term hero applied to what Mr Rapley did next, but what follows is pretty incredible.
He climbed on top of her and punched the shark for about 10 seconds until it opened its mouth and let go of her leg.
With the help of other surfers they got Ms Doyle back to shore where a nurse helped secure a tourniquet.
Ms Doyle, who is a botanist who works with threatened plants, said it all seems very surreal looking back.
She said she only surfs about 20 times a year so the odds of encountering a shark are “less likely than winning the lottery”.
“It’s hard to believe it has happened,” she said.
Now she is just concentrating on her recovery and remaining positive following the life-changing injuries.
“The hard part will be when we get home, everything we used to do as a family will change,” she said.
She said although she had a thought while in the water “that it might be over and that was OK”, she was grateful to still be here for her “lovely little boy” and her fiance.
And, despite her encounter with a shark, she was keen to see them flourish and has set up a fundraiser for the Australian Marine Conservation Society, with the money going to support a number of programs including one for sharks.
More than $8000 has been raised so far.
“It’s OK to have sharks, it’s good to have them in the ocean, it means we have healthy oceans,” she said.
To donate go to: https://give.everydayhero.com/au/shark