Onlookers were reportedly horrified. Photo: Oleksandr Sushko//Unsplash
It was a scene described by witnesses as “straight out of Jaws.“ This week, a shark violently killed a man in the waters off of Western Australia, as horrified beachgoers looked on.
The attack occurred at Sorrento Beach, located 12 miles northwest of Perth. According to the Western Australia Police Force, officials responded to an incident involving a shark around 10:30 a.m. the morning of September 18. “It was reported a male swimmer had been bitten by a shark while swimming along the coast,” said a Western Australia state police spokeswoman in a statement. “The swimmer died as a result of the attack.”
Witnesses painted a much more graphic picture, though. According to 7 News, dozens of people saw the attack, with one of them describing it as “like a scene from Jaws” and another telling the outlet the man was dragged out into deeper water “at a rate of knots.”
Witness Ryan Rowe told The West Australian, “I couldn’t believe there was that much blood [that had] come out of a human body.”
One man to witness the attack was the victim’s friend, who was described as “inconsolable” after managing to make it safely back to the beach. “He felt bad because he didn’t go back to save his mate and I said, ‘Nah you couldn’t have done that,’” said witness Darrel Haythornthwaite.
Though unprovoked shark encounters are rare, and deadly ones even rarer, this is the second recent shark incident in the region this week. Another man was bitten by a shark at Western Australia’s Glenfield Beach, roughly 250 miles north of Perth. The surfer, a man in his 50s, identified by St. John Ambulance as Mel Ismail, was rushed to nearby Geraldton Health Campus in serious but stable condition.
