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Shark attacks and seriously injures woman swimming in Sydney Harbor: “I heard a soft yell for help”
A shark mauled a woman in the first attack in Sydney Harbor in 15 years, officials said Tuesday, sending her to hospital with a serious leg injury.
The predator struck Monday evening as the woman swam off a wharf at Elizabeth Bay, about 1.2 miles from Sydney Opera House, police said.
The woman suffered a “serious injury to her right leg,” New South Wales police said in a statement.
It was the first shark attack in Sydney Harbor since February 2009, when an Australian navy diver fought off a bull shark that bit him in the arm and leg in Woolloomooloo Bay.
Neighbors rushed to help the Elizabeth Bay victim, identified by the Sydney Morning Herald as 29-year-old Lauren O’Neill.
“I got home from work and sat down on the couch. I heard a soft yell for help just outside the window,” nearby resident Michael Porter told reporters.
Outside, he saw the woman trying to climb a ladder out of the harbor’s waters.
“Behind her was her leg, which was limp and all completely open and full of dark red blood behind her,” Porter said.
“She had obviously been mauled extremely badly by whatever shark it was that got her,” he said.
“We have always worried and known about sharks in the harbor,” he added. “It’s only now that it feels very real.”
A veterinarian living nearby gave first aid.
The woman was in a stable condition in intensive care at St Vincent’s hospital, a hospital spokesperson said.
She was expected to undergo surgery during the day.
Witnessed posted video of the aftermath on social media and the woman could be seen being transported on a stretcher to an ambulance, local media reported.
Bull shark likely responsible
Analysis of the shark bite and of images provided by the authorities confirmed “a bull shark was likely responsible,” said shark scientist Amy Smoothey.
Sharks are “more actively feeding” in low light at dawn and dusk, she told national broadcaster ABC, making it “potentially a high-risk time to be swimming”.
Scientists have tagged 87 large bull sharks in Sydney Harbor since 2009, said Smoothey, who works for the New South Wales department of primary industries.
Tagging indicated that bull shark numbers in the harbor were at their highest in the Australian summer months of January and February, she said.
“Shark bites are really rare although they are very tragic when they do occur and my thoughts are with the victim,” Smoothey said.
“There are very few interactions that occur in our enclosed waterways but we know that bull sharks are one of the top three species involved in shark bites.”
In February 2022, 35-year-old British diving instructor Simon Nellist was killed off Sydney’s ocean beach Little Bay in the first fatal attack in the city since 1963.
The International Shark Attack Files, a University of Florida group that aims to compile all known shark attacks, classified the attack on Nellis as “provoked.” But that doesn’t mean Nellist was responsible for his death, according to Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
At the time of the attack on Nellist, several people were fishing from the shore cliffs, Naylor told the Times of London. He said in his blog post that fishing is “known to attract sharks” even if bait or chum aren’t used.
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Beryl, the second tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, took shape Friday as it barreled its way toward the Caribbean.
Beryl was expected to strengthen into a hurricane as it approached the Windward Islands in the West Indies, the National Hurricane Center reported in its latest advisory late Friday night.
Beryl was centered about 1,110 miles southeast of Barbados, the hurricane center said, with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour and tropical storm-force winds extending 45 miles from its center. It was moving west at 18 mph.
The system was expected to hit the Windward Islands by late Sunday or Monday, and was forecast to bring anything from 3 to 6 inches of rain to the Windward Islands and Barbados. No watches or warnings were yet in place.
NOAA
Last week, Tropical Storm Alberto brought torrential flooding to portions of southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. It was responsible for at least four deaths in the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon and Veracruz, according to the Associated Press.
The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and lasts through Nov. 30. According to the hurricane center, the season’s first hurricane usually forms in early to mid-August, which would make Beryl unusual if it were to reach hurricane strength. In a report released last month, the NOAA predicted an “above average” hurricane season with 17 to 25 storms, 8 to 13 hurricanes and 4 to 7 major hurricanes of category 3 or higher.
A tropical storm is a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph, while a hurricane is defined as a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds greater than 74 mph.
CBS News
Martin Mull, beloved actor known for “Fernwood 2 Night,” “Roseanne” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” dies at 80
Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development,” has died, his daughter said Friday. He was 80.
Mull’s Daughter, TV writer and comic artist Maggie Mull, said her father died at home on Thursday after “a valiant fight against a long illness.”
Mull, who was also a guitarist and painter, came to national fame with a recurring role on the Norman Lear-created satirical soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and the starring role in its spinoff, “Fernwood 2 Night,” on which he played the host of a satirical talk show.
Mat Hayward/Getty Images for Netflix
“He was known for excelling at every creative discipline imaginable and also for doing Red Roof Inn commercials,” Maggie Mull said in an Instagram post. “He would find that joke funny. He was never not funny. My dad will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, by his friends and coworkers, by fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and —the sign of a truly exceptional person— by many, many dogs.”
Melissa Joan Hart, who acted alongside Mull in the series “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” paid tribute to him on Instagram on Friday, calling him “a wonderful man who I am better for knowing.”
“I have such fond memories of working with him and being in awe of his huge body of work,” she wrote.
Known for his blonde hair and well-trimmed mustache, Mull was born in Chicago, raised in Ohio and Connecticut. He studied art in Rhode Island and Rome. He combined his music and comedy in hip Hollywood clubs in the 1970s.
“In 1976 I was a guitar player and sit-down comic appearing at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me,” Mull told The Associated Press in 1980. “He cast me as the wife beater on ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.’ Four months later I was spun off on my own show.”
In the 1980s he appeared in films including “Mr. Mom” and “Clue,” and in the 1990s had a recurring role on “Roseanne.”
He would later play private eye Gene Parmesan on “Arrested Development,” and would be nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for a guest turn on “Veep.”
