A Christmas Day surf quickly turned into a mad dash to the hospital when a teenage Australian surfer was bitten by a shark. Luckily, thanks to the quick thinking of his friends and a bit of luck, he was able to survive the ordeal.
The event took place at Old Bar on New South Wales’ Mid North Coast, where 16-year-old Julian McLennan was surfing with his friends. Around 4:30 p.m., McLennan was bitten by a shark presumed to be a juvenile great white.
“I was sitting out the back, surfing, going over a wave and I just feel something grab me. I look to the right and I see a massive fin coming out of the water and it’s the body of a shark,” McLennan told 9News. “I start paddling in. I have no clue if I have a leg still and I’m just looking at Alex, and I’m just freaking out.”
Julian’s friend, Alex Tobin, was also in the water. He saw the splash from the shark bite and quickly rushed to the beach to grab a shirt, which he wrapped around McLennan’s leg to stop the bleeding.
From there, the two called in another friend, Will Anderson, who was already in the parking lot. He drove McLennan to the hospital himself, rather than waiting for an ambulance, saying he “just thought the ambulance would have taken too long to get out there and, not knowing how bad the bite actually was, I just wanted to be on the safer side and get moving as quick as we could.”
Though an encounter with a great white is many surfers’ nightmare scenario, the situation could have turned out much worse. As 9News reports, the bite was inches from McLennan’s femoral artery, which meant the difference between life and death. McLennan added that he was lucky his board partially shielded him from the creature. “If I didn’t have the fin on the surfboard, it probably would have taken my leg,” he explained.
McLennan will understandably take a break from surfing, but not for long. “I’m still a bit shocked, but you know, we’ll get there,” he said.
