Shark attack survivor keen to shout rescuers few beers
Survivor says he and fiancee only now appreciating how close he came to death
Shark-attack survivor Andrew “Nugget” Brough has found a decidedly Kiwi way to thank the men who saved him: shouting them a box of beer. The Whanga¯rei surfer, who was due to have more surgery to deep bite wounds in his arm yesterday afternoon, said he’d had more time to reflect on his attack by a great white shark at Baylys Beach near Dargaville on Friday evening.
The 25-year-old had been in the water for 30 minutes when the shark came at him from below, biting him in the arm so severely that 40 stitches were required.
But his surfboard — a JS Industries board that he’d just bought from Australia for $1000 — took the brunt of the bite, and was left with a tooth in it.
Speaking to the Herald from his hospital bed yesterday, Brough estimated that his whole arm would have been ripped off if his board hadn’t blocked the juvenile shark.
And if he’d been positioned just half a metre down the board, the predator likely could have had a clear run at his stomach.
“I think it all sort of dawned on me yesterday . . . and my fiancee was a bit shook up talking about it . . . but it all could have ended — it was a reality check.
“I mean, I lived in Western Australia for five years when attacks were happening there, and everyone was always talking about it, but for it to actually happen to you, you never think it’s possible.
“That’s why when the shark came up and actually hit me, and I saw it thrashing around, well I just thought, this is it.”
That said, Brough was determined to get back out into the waves as soon as he can.
After his final round of surgery, and a final check that he’d sustained no tendon or nerve damage, he expected to be wearing the cast fitted around his arm for several weeks at least.
“There’ll be a solid two weeks in a cast, then I start rehab, then I’ll be back in the water soon after that, hopefully.”
While he didn’t think his injury would affect his surfing, there would always be a “mental barrier” in the wake of his horrifying near-miss.
“It’s always going to be there in the back of your head . . . but I’m inspired not to let it affect me.”
He said he planned to keep the tooth lodged in his battered board as well as the fragments plucked from his arm as souvenirs.
“Surfing’s what I love doing — the only thing that’s gonna hold me back is getting a new board, so if JS Industries were able to help me out there, it’d be much appreciated.”
He was still keen to compare stories with legendary Australian surfer Mick Fanning, who also had an encounter with what was suspected to be a great white.
In the meantime, he wanted to thank in person the people he credited with getting him to safety.
They included his mate Tohi Henry — “he was with me when the whole ordeal happened and was with me all the way“— a Whanga¯rei firefighter who rushed to his aid, and another local, Garry Yeabsley, who took Brough in his ute to a vacant lot to await emergency services.
“I’d like to say thanks to them . . . I’m going to take a box [of beers] around to them when I can.”