An Australian surfer took a practical approach when it came to rescuing his wife from a brutal shark attack.
Mark Rapley said he repeatedly hit a shark that fell into Mrs Chantelle Doyle’s leg and pulled her off her surfboard Sunday morning while the pair were in the ocean at Shelly Beach in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. .
Watch TODAY all day! Get the best news, information and inspiration from TODAY, all day long.
“When you see the mother of your children, and your support, is all you are, so you just react,” Rapley told Australia’s Nine Network.
“You do not think to hit, punch it at any moment, you are just, your body reacts to say go away, go away. So you start punching, you start thinking wonderfully where you need to punch it, and so on. are you like, ‘I’ll attack the eye or whatever.’ You’re just starting to think differently, I think. “
The shark was rumored to be a juvenile wild white between 6 1/2 and 10 feet long by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. It bit Doyle, 35, on the right calf and the back of her thigh before Rapley paddled to her board and hit it from her, according to New South Wales police.
“It hit her like with a force, throwing her off the board,” Rapley told Nine Network. “I just saw the water splashing and pounding, and I knew it right away.
“They feel like a muscle ball. It feels like you punching a brick wall. It’s hard.”
Doyle was taken to Port Macquarie Hospital in stable condition and was then taken to John Hunter Hospital, where she will undergo surgery, according to police.
“The immediate first aid, the immediate support that helped the patient out of the water, was pretty amazing,” Andy Beverly of New South Wales Ambulance told reporters at a news conference. “The application of, I understand, a tournament, a trial tournament, was used, which was potentially a life-saving tool.”
Authorities are now using drones, boats and jet skis to track down the shark, while Doyle is recovering from the horrific attack.
“She’s in pretty good spirits, still strong and hopefully all good from here, but long way to recovery I think,” Rapley said.
The attack came a month after two fatal shark attacks in Australia. A spear fisherman was killed on July 4 from Fraser Island in Queensland Australia, and a surfer was killed on July 11 on Wooli Beach in New South Wales, according to the International Shark Attack File. A woman was also killed last month by a large white shark in Maine in the first recorded shark-related killing in the state.
