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Young park ranger fatally mauled by shark in front of colleagues

A shark has fatally mauled a Queensland ranger in front of his colleagues at the same island where two other attacks occurred in recent months.

Apr 07, 2020, updated Apr 07, 2020
North West Island is about 75 kilometres from Gladstone.

Supplied: Queensland Department of Environment and Science

North West Island is about 75 kilometres from Gladstone. Supplied: Queensland Department of Environment and Science

 

‘The 23-year-old died in hospital on Monday night a few hours after he was bitten off North West Island, 75 kilometres northeast of Gladstone.

Police say the victim and other rangers decided to go for a swim off the back of their boat, after spending the day doing maintenance work on the island.

The victim’s colleagues were ahead of him and had already reached the vessel when the sharked struck.

“They would have witnessed the attack,” Detective Senior Sergeant Tony Anderson told reporters on Tuesday.

“There were four people swimming off the back of a boat, cooling down after a day’s work.”

It’s not clear what kind of shark was involved.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has paid tribute to the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service officer, sending condolences to his grieving family.

“A lot of his work colleagues, I understand, were very upset today,” she told reporters.

The man suffered extensive injuries to his leg and arm. He survived an emergency flight to the Gladstone hospital but later died.

Monday’s attack was the third at North West Island in just over three months.

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In January, a nine-year-old girl was attacked by a shark, suffering a bite wound to the back of her leg, and puncture wounds to her foot.

A lemon shark was suspected of that attack.

And in late December a shovelnose shark bit a man in shallow waters at North West Island.

He suffered minor injuries to his right hand and leg.

There have also been a series of other shark attacks on the Great Barrier Reef over the past 18 months.

Last October two British backpackers were attacked while snorkelling at Hook Island in the Whitsundays. One of the men lost his foot.

In March last year, a 25-year-old man suffered serious thigh injuries when a shark attacked him at Hardy Reef, near Hamilton island, which is also in the Whitsunday Islands chain.

Those attacks followed another fatality in November 2018, when Victorian doctor Daniel Christidis, 33, was killed at Cid Harbour at Whitsunday Island.

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