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Police and witnesses have praised the “heroic” actions of a group of teenagers who were on the water at Port beach when a man was taken by a large shark.
The West Australian was told the group of boys had been out on the boat “being boys” when the horror attack unfolded.
A woman who is close to one of the teenagers said the group “saw it all unfold — the whole thing”.
“They then alerted everyone on the beach to get out,” she said.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, said one of the boys was “in shock”.
The four teenagers have also been praised by police at the scene, with Acting Inspector Emma Barnes describing their actions as “heroic and very brave”.
“(They got) everyone else out of the water and notified everyone of what was happening,” she said.
Suzette Harding was at the beach just after the attack — and praised the “wonderful” boys for their efforts in ushering swimmers out of the water as well. “These wonderful young boys in tinnies came zooming down the beach and just gesturing for everyone to get out of the water,” she said.
“They were gesturing with their hands, you could tell they weren’t mucking about — they were serious. “(It is) very, very frightening because this is where we come and swim all the time and have done for years. “It’s a terrible terrible tragedy and thank goodness for those boys.”
Simone Lazaroo spoke to the person who called an ambulance. “We had heard someone had been bitten, I spoke to the guy who made the triple zero call,” she said.
“He had made a pre-emptive call for an ambulance because he saw a shark go really close to a guy who was swimming.
“That guy got out of the water. But then we heard more news of someone going missing.
“Someone pointed out to me his beach bag.
“His wife was down here, someone pointed her out to me, walking down the beach with police.”
Ms Lazaroo said she saw a large dorsal fin.
“I heard subsequently there were two sharks,” she said
“About 20-30 metres offshore.”
Kaiden Boult was surfing with his friends near Sand Tracks when the dinghy of boys “came flying at us and screamed at us to get out of the water because there’s been a shark attack”.
Seconds after exiting the water Kaiden Boult saw what he said was a “massive shark “.
“We scurried out onto the rocks as soon as we got out to get a lock from a high vantage point and as soon as we did we saw a massive shark out in the water,” he said.
Another witness said the teenagers were “clearly distressed”, but that they had done an amazing job raising the alarm.
