Pastor Luke Walford identified as spearfisherman killed in shark attack

The 40-year-old suffered injuries to his neck while fishing with his family off the Central Queensland coast, becoming the first victim of a fatal shark attack in Australia in a year.

Luke Walford, 40, was killed in a shark attack off the Central Queensland coast.

A popular youth pastor who was spearfishing off the Central Queensland coast with his family has become the first victim of a fatal shark attack in Australia in a year.

Luke Walford, 40, a school chaplain at Heights College and pastor at the Cathedral of Praise Church in Rockhampton, suffered injuries to his neck in the incident.

Emergency services were called to Humpy Island in the Keppel Bay Islands National Park, about 20km east of Yeppoon, at 4.37pm on Saturday following reports of a man being mauled by a shark.

A medical team flew to the island in a rescue helicopter and desperately worked to save his life but he was pronounced dead shortly before 6pm.

Luke Walford, 40, has died after a Humpy Island shark attack.

Mr Walford’s death is also the first fatal shark attack in Queensland for more than four years, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database, a partnership involving Taronga Conservation Society Australia, Flinders University and the NSW government.

The database records 256 people as confirmed fatal shark attack victims since 1788, with Queensland’s 101 the most of any state.

Prior to the weekend incident, the last person to die in a shark attack was surfer Khai Cowley, 15, killed exactly a year to the day earlier at Ethel Beach on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula by a great white shark.

Queensland Police said in a statement that Mr Walford was “fishing with family members” when the incident occurred.

“Police will prepare a report for the coroner,” the statement added.

An ambulance service spokesman and his church said he was spearfishing.

His social media posts and photos indicate he had been a keen spearfisherman for years. It was “a passion passed down to him by his father”, who died two years ago, the Cathedral of Praise said in a Facebook post.

The family is well known in the town and there was an outpouring of grief on social media.

“Yesterday our community lost a wonderful man in tragic circumstances,” Rockhampton MP Donna Kirkland posted on Facebook. “A family friend, not only to my own family but countless others. He was an inspirational leader as a children’s and youth pastor. We are all very much in shock.”

Friends paid tribute to Mr Walford online as a “gentle soul” who would be “sorely missed”.

Queensland introduced shark nets and drum lines at beaches in 1962, and since then there have been only two fatal attacks at locations where they are deployed.

But spearfishing in remote areas has no such protection and remains a high-risk sport, reportedly growing in popularity as a result of footage being posted online.

Matthew Tratt, 36, a father of two from the Sunshine Coast, was killed when a shark mauled his leg while he was spearfishing off K’gari (Fraser Island) in July 2020.

Richard Bettua sustained injuries to his upper thigh in 2020, and Glenn Dickinson had his leg amputated during emergency surgery in 2017. In both those incidents, the men were spearfishing off the coast of Lucinda in north Queensland.

Earlier this month, a man in his 60s was bitten by a shark while spearfishing off Curtis Island off the Central Queensland coast. In that incident the spearfisherman suffered lacerations to both arms after a shark initially attacked a fish he had just speared.

“It’s turned basically towards my mate. So I’ve shot at it to chase it away,” friend Gordon Jensen told 7News at the time.

“Then it all just started going west from there. I put a spear through it to fend it away, and (my friend has) gone the other way. I’ve come to the boat to get out of the water (and) turned around to look back and he’s yelling out. It’s on his arm, on his hands, so it’s jumped up onto his hands and started biting him on the hands.”

The Cathedral of Praise’s website says Mr Walford joined the pastoral team in 2015 and became a youth pastor in 2022.

“Luke is a God-honouring man whose enthusiasm and energy to serve the body is infectious. He has a genuine love for children and young people and desires to help them grow in all that God has created them to be,” the site states.