Two teens suffer shark bites during evening swim on Victoria’s Surf Coast

Two teens bitten by a shark during an evening swim off Victoria’s Surf Coast fought back, with a former trauma nurse miraculously on hand.

A teenager has recounted the moment he and a friend were attacked by a shark while swimming off Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula on Monday evening.

Jack Shaw and friend Tiarna, both 15, were swimming in neck deep water when they crossed paths with what is believed to have been either a reef shark or a bronze whaler.

Attempting to flee to shore, Jack was bitten and left with deep gashes to his back.

“I turned around, it got me on the back and then I said ‘swim!’ and tried as fast as we could to get back in to shore,” he told Nine news.

The youngster also helped fight off the shark when it latched onto Tiarna, leaving her with a cut on her hand and a wound to her calf.

Ocean Grove Main beach, where the attack took place, reopened at about midday. Picture: Alan Barber

“I did my best to get it off there, so I was smacking at it, trying to get it off,’ he said.

Jack recalls the thoughts running through his head at the time as “get the shark, get it off, get out of the water”.

When they arrived at the shore, the pair were lucky enough to be treated by locals including a former trauma nurse who applied pressure to the wounds using beach towels before paramedics arrived.

Tiarna leg wounds were serious and she had to undergo surgery at Geelong Hospital.

Authorities reopened the beach at around midday Tuesday, however official advice remains not to go swimming at dawn and dusk when visibility is low and sharks are more active.

Ocean Grove Main beach was deserted on Tuesday. Picture: Alan Barber