A Japanese national was killed Monday after a shark tore off his legs while surfing off Australia’s east coast. The incident had occurred not far from the area where another surfer was mauled by a shark just a day earlier. The 41-year-old man was sitting on his board patiently waiting for a wave, when the shark snuck up behind him and grabbed the back of the board and the man’s legs in its mouth. His friends, who were with him at the time, rushed him to shore, where they tried to stop the bleeding with tourniquets and performed CPR. David Wright, mayor of the New South Wales town of Ballina stated that because both legs were gone, he bled to death fairly quickly. The man’s name has yet to be released, but apparently he had been living in the area and worked at a local surf shop and as a cleaner at a hotel. Shelly Beach (the site of the attack) was closed temporarily as officials searched the surrounding areas for the shark. Sharks are common off Australia’s beaches, but fatal attacks are indeed rare.
