PERTH, Australia (AFP) – A surfer was critical Wednesday after a shark ripped off his leg in an attack in Australia’s west with witnesses recounting how “all hell broke loose” as his board was snapped in half.
The attack happened at Falcon Beach, a suburb south of Perth, late Tuesday not long after Surf Life Saving WA, a volunteer non-profit organization, tweeted that a shark, believed to be a great white, had been sighted in the area.
The West Australian newspaper reported that Ben Gerring, 29, was with a group of other surfers when he was hit by the shark, which it said severed his right leg above the knee.
Fellow surfers dragged the heavily-bleeding man to shore as he lost consciousness. “I turned and looked back and I actually saw thrashing around him and I heard him yelling for help,” friend Sheldon Spencer told the newspaper.
