REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Friday, December 17, 2004

TWO monster great white sharks ripped a teenager apart at a popular Adelaide beach.

Nick Peterson was surfboarding behind a boat when sharks grabbed him by the arm and pulled him under the water.

Friends could do nothing but watch helplessly as their mate was torn to pieces only 300m off the unnetted beach.

For years, South Australian conservationists campaigned against shark nets such as those used in Queensland and NSW.

South Australia had become the world hotspot for fatal shark attacks.

Witnesses say he tried to beat off the shark but disappeared in a “massive pool of blood” within seconds.

A second great white then joined the attack, striking at the boat as three of Nick’s former schoolmates tried to strike it with paddles.

The schoolmates raced back to shore, alerting Anna and Frank Criscitelli – who were about to launch their boat – of the attack.

“Help, help us … our mate’s been taken by a shark!” they cried. “Don’t go out, don’t go out. Sharks, sharks!”

Mrs Criscitelli, 31, of Glenelg, said she couldn’t believe what she was hearing and initially thought it was a joke.

The attack occurred five days after a man was killed in a shark attack off the far north Queensland coast.

Part of the man’s surfboard and other small items were found by searchers and were being examined.

But there was no sign of the victim or the sharks following the attack, which occurred about 3pm, about 300m off Adelaide’s West Beach.