Woman attacked by shark in Australia’s Sydney Harbour

by Mick the Ram

A 29-year-old woman has had a very lucky escape after an attack in Sydney Harbour by what is thought to have been a bull shark, left her with severe leg injuries.

Lauren O’Neill had gone for a sunset swim close to a private pier at the harbour on Monday (29 January) evening. Locals heard her cries for help and rushed to her aid, with one of them whose occupation is as a veterinary surgeon, attributed with saving her life by applying a tourniquet to stem the very heavy bleeding.

The general belief amongst those in attendance was that had the attack occurred further away from the jetty she always certainly would have died. She was taken to hospital in a serious, but stable condition.

Bull sharks are frequent visitors to the harbour’s warmer waters around this time of year, but attacks are rare. The last reported one occurred back in 2009 when former navy diver Paul de Gelder was left without an arm and a leg after being mauled during a counter-terrorism exercise.

Cry for help as hero emerges

Ms O’Neill, a public servant working for the NSW government within the Department of Climate Change, had gone for a dip at a private location within the harbour, in the upmarket suburb of Elizabeth Bay.

Resident Michael Porter spoke of hearing a muffled cry for help at around 8pm and on investigation he could see his neighbour hanging on to a ladder, on the side of the wharf. He described seeing a trail of dark blood surrounding her in the water and as he got closer he saw that her leg was completely open from the knee down.

“It was like the worst horror movie you’ve ever seen” he said, before explaining how another neighbour, who had arrived first, probably saved Ms O’Neill’s life. “She is an absolute hero”, he remarked. “She got straight into emergency mode. People were holding Lauren’s hand and she was extremely brave the whole time and very lucid.”

Bravery of victim

The hero neighbour he referred to was vet Fiona Crago, who used two compression bandages to wrap the wound and stem the flow of blood. “She was severely mauled on her right leg, and she was losing a lot of blood,” she said afterwards, before adding: “People around her were reassuring her, and she actually did remain conscious for the whole ordeal. She was saying ‘thank you’, she was just so brave and so polite.”

Serious but stable

NSW Ambulance Acting Inspector Brett Simpson said multiple paramedics and intensive care teams, including an ambulance helicopter carrying blood transfusion products, had rushed to the scene.

He was full of praise for the assistance Ms O’Neill had received prior to the emergency services arrival. “The young lady was taken in a serious but stable condition to St Vincent’s Hospital, after bystanders did an exceptional job with their quick thinking and looking after this young lady, as did our paramedics by stabilising her,” he said.

Regular visitors

The bull shark is a common species that can grow up to 3.5 metres in length. They have regularly been spotted around the harbour, which covers a vast area of some 55 square miles kilometres and

more than 80 have actually been tagged over the past 15 years, often found in areas with water depths less than 5m and near steep drop off’s.

Research would indicate that they enter into shallow areas to feed in times of low light, in other words dawn and dusk and January and February are the peak months. Water temperature currently in Sydney Harbour is around 22 degrees, making it ideal for a bull shark.

Accident waiting to happen

Sydney councillor Linda Scott said officials investigating the circumstances of Monday’s attack will determine if more precautions need to be taken. However, one witness chillingly stated that sharks are regularly seen swimming under the jetty and felt it was just a matter of time before a major incident happened.

Repeat attack unlikely

Experts urge exercising caution, as there is no 100 per cent safeguard against sharks when using Sydney Harbour. Nevertheless, they were keen to add that the chances of another bull shark attack occurring were “incredibly low”.

The last fatal shark attack in Sydney was in 2022, when diving instructor Simon Nellist, 35, was killed after being mauled by a great white shark off Little Bay, but that was the city’s first fatal attack in nearly six decades.