An Australian man recently found himself squaring up against a great white shark after the animal attacked his wife and refused to let her go, 9 News reported.
Mark Rapley and Chantelle Doyle were surfing the waters at Shelley Beach in Port Macquarie, just north of Sydney on Saturday when the predator grabbed hold of Chantelle’s leg, prompting Mark to attack the animal and repeatedly punch it until it had released his wife.
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The shark that attacked the couple was reported to be about two to three meters in length.
As Mark recalled to 9 News , the large animal slammed into his wife’s board while the two were surfing Saturday morning, causing Chantelle to topple into the water.
Almost immediately, the shark latched its teeth into her right calf, and then on the back of her thigh.
For Mark, there was no time to hesitate — he had to act fast if he wanted to save his wife’s life.
“You see the mother of your child, your support, everything you are, you just react,” he explained to 9 News. “Get off that calf, that’s all I could think, just get off.”
Leaping off his own surfboard, Mark landed on top of the shark’s back and began punching it repeatedly in an effort to get it to release Chantelle from its lethal jaws.
The juvenile shark initially resisted Mark’s attack and continued to hold onto his wife.
“I was trying to leverage punches down onto it,” Mark recalled. “It feels like you’re punching a brick wall, like it’s hard.”
Eventually, the shark released Chantelle and swam away. Despite his relief, Mark knew they weren’t out of the water yet, so to speak, as his wife’s leg was bleeding profusely from the attack.
He helped the injured Chantelle onto her board, and the pair paddled the 50 meters back to shore where they were met with a group of concerned locals who had witnessed the attack.
Those individuals prepared a makeshift stretcher for Chantelle, and used her surfboard’s leg rope as a tourniquet in an effort to stop the bleeding.
Medics then arrived on scene and airlifted her to the hospital, where Surf Life Saving NSW reports she is in serious but stable condition.
Following the terrifying attack, Mark says his wife (who he insists is the real hero of this story) is expected to face a long recovery.
However, he also admitted something rather surprising about Chantelle and her thoughts on the animal who attacked her.
As Mark explained, “She’s a conservationist and botanist and doing a PhD, so she’s worried about the shark.”
h/t: 9 News
