Shark kills a woman and seriously injures a man who was accompanying her on an Australian beach

A shark killed a woman and seriously injured a man who was swimming with her early Thursday morning at a national park beach on Australia’s east coast, police said.

Experts say a shark rarely attacks more than one person.

The attack occurred in Crowdy Bay National Park, known for beach camping, fishing spots and hiking trails, 224 miles north of Sydney. The incident occurred just weeks after a shark fatally mutilated a surfer on a beach off Sydney.

Beaches in the area and north of the attack were closed to swimmers indefinitely, Police Chief Insp. Timothy Bayly said.

Emergency services were called to Kylies Beach following reports that two people in their 20s had been bitten by a shark at 6.30am, Bayly said.

Bayly declined to detail the injuries or the circumstances of the attack. “At this point, all I’m willing to say is that they knew each other and they were going swimming and the shark attacked them,” Bayly told reporters.

A passerby helped the couple on the beach before ambulance paramedics arrived, but the woman died at the scene.

The man was airlifted to a hospital and paramedic Josh Smyth said the man’s condition was serious but stable.

Smyth said the bystander’s first aid could have prevented a double death.

“I really need to thank the bystander on the beach who put a makeshift tourniquet on the man’s leg which obviously potentially saved his life and allowed paramedics from NSW Ambulance to get to him and provide first aid,” Smyth told reporters.

Steven Pearce, chief executive of Surf Life Saving NSW, described it as “a truly terrible incident”.

“This area is so remote that there is no lifeguard service there,” Pearce told local radio 2GB.

The identities of the man and woman were not released.

The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said the two were Swiss citizens. “The Consulate General of Switzerland in Sydney is in contact with local authorities and supports family members within the framework of consular protection,” it said in a statement.

Scientists had determined that the couple had been attacked by a large bull shark, according to a statement from the state government.

Five drum lines (baited hooks suspended from floats) were deployed off Kylies Beach in an attempt to catch the shark, the government said.

Drum lines had already been installed to the north at Port Macquarie and south at Forster to reduce shark numbers.

Gavin Naylor, director of the University of Florida’s shark research program and administrator of the International Shark Attack File database, said a single shark attacking more than one person was exceptionally rare.

“It’s very unusual. Individual shark attacks are rare. And shark attacks on two people by the same individual are not unheard of, but they are very rare,” Naylor said.

Naylor said he would need to know the details of the sequence of the shark’s behavior on Thursday to understand what had motivated it to bite.

Two British tourists were attacked by a single shark while snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia in 2019. One lost a foot and the other suffered injuries to a leg.

There have been more than 1,280 shark incidents in Australia since 1791, of which more than 250 resulted in death, according to a database of the predators’ encounters with humans.

The International Shark Attack File, a database of global shark attacks run by the University of Florida, noted last year that a “disproportionate” number of people Died from shark bites in Australia in 2023 compared to other countries in the world.

TO Surfer fatally mauled by shark on Sydney beach in September. The man, who left behind a wife and young daughter, lost “several limbs” and his surfboard broke in two, police said.

Earlier this month, an Australian windsurfer had a lucky escape after coming face to face with a shark off the country’s west coast. A camera from surf media website swellnet.com captured the moment the shark seemingly came out of nowhere and knocked Andy McDonald, 61, off his board.

“Everything was really nice, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, bang, something so hard and strong hit me like a freight train,” McDonald told Australian broadcaster ABC. “It just pushed me in the air and I fell into the water. I knew it was a shark.”