Man’s life saved in bull shark attack
A HINCHINBROOK man who rescued a mate mauled by a bull shark during a spearfishing trip on the Great Barrier Reef yesterday is also credited with saving the lives of two other men in separate wildlife encounters.
In an exclusive interview with the Townsville Bulletin, Peter Kocica told of the dramatic underwater attack and rescue of his close friend Rick Bettua, a former US Navy master diver.
Police said Mr Bettua arrived at the Dungeness boat ramp at 1.10pm yesterday in a critical condition.
It is understood he arrived with no pulse but was stabilised by paramedics before being flown by rescue helicopter to Townsville University Hospital.
Mr Kocica said it was the last dive of the day at the northern end of Britomart Reef east of Cardwell Island, and he had noticed the presence of a couple of large bull sharks earlier.
He said they shot fish at the same time but Mr Bettua’s line became entangled on coral.
“I’ve looked across and I’ve just seen this big bull shark flying over across (the coral) and out of the deep and he’s tried to (protect himself) and it grabbed on to his leg and has taken
a couple of bites I saw.”
Mr Kocica said that despite the presence of the shark, he swam across and down to his mate.
“I grabbed him, blood was pouring out of his leg, and we swam back to the boat about 30 metres away,” Mr Kocica said.
Mr Bettua was one of three men, including Mr Kocica credited with saving the life of Glenn Dickson in a high-profile shark attack off Cardwell in 2017.
Mr Kocica, who also saved his son-in-law who was bitten
by a death adder after a kayaking expedition in a crocodileinfested river in May, said he applied a tourniquet to Mr Bettua’s leg and applied pressure, calling over two larger and faster boats to rush his critically injured mate to Dungeness.
After loading Mr Bettua on to one of the boats, Mr Kocica said he turned and headed for port, alerting emergency services to the situation.
Mr Kocica said it was fortuitous that he had unloaded Mr Bettua on to one of the larger boats for two reasons, one
being there was a doctor on board and that his own boat ran out of fuel on the way into Dungeness.
Life Flight critical care doctor David Humphreys and his crew worked for “several minutes” to bring back Mr Bettua’s pulse and provided breathing intervention and placed him on life support.
“The obvious concern was catastrophic bleeding,” Dr Humphreys said.
“We wanted to stabilise him as far as we could with our resources and then get him as quickly as possible to surgery.”
Dr Humphreys said the Life Flight crew gave the man multiple units of blood at the scene and during the flight.
A Townsville University Hospital spokeswoman said Mr Bettua was in a critical but stable condition.
Dr Humphreys said the rescue had a heavy impact on the crew as well as the people who rendered emergency assistance to the man when he was bitten.
“This is the type of work that we do, but nevertheless it still has an emotional impact on the crew,” he said.