Shark attacks surfer at Yellow Sands

A 19-YEAR-OLD surfer suffered multiple lacerations yesterday after being bitten by what eyewitnesses said was a shark at Yellow Sands Point on the East Coast.



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Michal du Plessis and four friends were surfing near the Kwelera River Mouth when the shark bit him, injuring his upper thigh and the lower part of his right knee.
Logan Philpott, who was one of the group surfing with Du Plessis, said they had been in the water for an hour and a half when he heard his friend shout “Shark! Shark!”.
“I thought he was joking at first, but then everyone else started shouting and when I looked, I saw this thing, a tail and a fin, shaking itself against my friend,” he said.
The teenager said that Du Plessis was fighting it off, trying to get it away from it.
Philpott paddled towards his friend and the shark disappeared.
Du Plessis got back onto his surfboard and caught a wave, and the whole group paddled back to shore.
“There was blood, a lot of it, covering the rocks. So we tied a leash around his leg to stop (the bleeding) while others ran to get a car,” said Philpott.
He said they put him into the back of a van and sped to a Crossways pharmacy, where he was treated and bandaged before being taken to hospital by ambulance.
“When he arrived here he was in a lot of pain and with very deep wounds,” the pharmacy manager told the Dispatch.
He said they had given him medication to ease the pain, bandaged his wounds and handed him over to Aldersons Ambulance paramedics who arrived soon after.
It appeared he had been bitten to the bone, Aldersons Ambulance operations manager Alan Leicester said.
“We had to stabilise him and deal with the pain and we also gave him fluids since he had lost a lot of blood,” he said.

The teenager was rushed to Life St Dominic's Hospital in East London.
“He was awake and talking, but will be going for x-rays to determine whether there was any damage to the bone.”

“I have seen sharks close up, but seeing it nibble at my friend was very scary,” Philpott said.
It was not clear what kind of shark had bitten Du Plessis.