Updated ,first published
A 35-year-old woman is in a critical condition after being bitten by a three to four-metre shark at Coogee Beach on Saturday morning.
A paddleboarder rescued the woman before she was treated by an off-duty emergency physician and lifeguards who quickly stabilised her, NSW Ambulance Inspector Mike Corlis said.
“She has quite massive wounds to her left lower leg and her arms,” Corlis said.
The woman was 30 metres offshore when the shark bit her just after 11am, he said.
She was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney with serious arm and leg injuries.
Randwick Council jet skis patrolled the beach following the attack, with its staff estimating the shark to be at least three to four metres in size.
Paddleboarder Charlie Verco raced to the woman’s rescue as the shark dragged the woman underwater. He described holding the barely conscious woman above water with one arm and paddling with the other to shore, where bystanders leapt into action to provide first aid.
Stephen Denneny, director of One Shot Creative, captured images of the shark swimming languidly in Coogee Bay moments after the attack.
The footage shows a patch of dark water that Denneny said was most likely blood, marking the location of the shark attack about 30 metres from shore.
The shark remained in Coogee Bay for 30 to 45 minutes before making its way north towards Gordons Bay and Clovelly, Denneny said.
“I’m still in shock … It’s very sad to see,” he said. “I was in the water five minutes before it happened.
“This poor family have to go through all of this. We are praying for the woman and her family.”
Lawrence Chlebeck, a marine biologist with Humane World for Animals Australia, said the shark in Denneny’s video appears to be a great white.
Bartender Tom Vesper was sitting on the rainbow steps at Coogee, about to go for a swim, when the shark alarm went off.
“I saw blood in the water and then heaps of people creating privacy around her,” he said.
Vesper said the woman was swimming laps across the length of the beach, in water that was perhaps 10 metres deep.
Randwick Mayor Dylan Parker, who arrived at the beach just after the incident, said the woman had been “in pretty bad shape”.
“There are lots of very shaken-up people, but we are so thankful for the heroic efforts of that individual and council lifeguards in providing that immediate first aid and CPR,” Parker said.
Coogee local Cooper Smeaton arrived at the beach to a confronting and chaotic scene. He described swimmers and beachgoers scrambling as the shark alarm blared, and the victim lay bleeding on the sand, looking “scared and traumatised”.
A woman named Maiara, who declined to provide a surname, described a tranquil morning at the beach as being disturbed by chaos, blood and sirens.
“I was just looking at the ocean, I saw a lot of blood, and a lady asking for help. It was a little bit traumatising,” Maiara said.
Another witness, Oakley Lamb, said he saw splashing in the water, and blood.
“It just turned into havoc,” he said.
The incident at Coogee follows a series of shark attacks in NSW last summer.
A 12-year-old boy, Nico Antic, died after being bitten by a bull shark at Nielsen Park in Vaucluse. There were also three other suspected bull shark attacks on NSW beaches, resulting in two hospitalisations and a narrow escape for an 11-year-old boy whose surfboard was bitten.
Experts attributed the January attacks to heavy rains. Chris Pepin-Neff, a shark bite policy researcher at the University of Sydney, said then that the public should be warned when it is unsafe to swim at beaches after 20 millimetres of rain because of increased faecal matter and pollution from estuaries.
“Baitfish are attracted to faecal matter, and sharks are attracted to baitfish.”
Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce said it was the fourth serious shark attack since September 2025.
Pearce said that while the volunteer Surf Life Saving patrol season ended in April, additional drone surveillance has been organised for Bondi-Bronte on Saturday and Sunday, with further flights in the area to be assessed. Drones were flying in 14 locations for the rest of the month, he said.
Randwick and Waverley councils closed all their beaches.
Like many Sydney beaches, Coogee has shark nets in summer. The nets were removed at the end of March.
Be the first to know when major news happens. Sign up for breaking news alerts on email or turn on notifications in the app.
Julie Power is a senior reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.
Jessica McSweeney is a reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald covering state politics and urban affairs.Connect via email.From our partners
Read the full article here
