Young girl attacked by shark or toadfish
A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl was undergoing surgery late last night following a reported shark attack on a Hamilton Island beach.
A 60-year-old woman suffered lacerations to the leg in the same incident.
However, the attack was s being blamed on a toadfish by y operators of the iconic resort t where it happened.
Initial reports indicated a 1m shark had attacked the girl and woman in shallow water off Hamilton Island’s Catseye e Beach about 9.30am yesterday. .
It would have been the e fourth shark attack in the Whitsundays in as many months.
But Hamilton Island CEO O Glenn Bourke said after con- sultation with “our own medical staff, resident professional fishermen and independent fisheries personnel” it’s believed a toadfish was at fault.
“Whilst we cannot unequivocally say it is not a shark bite, those factors lead us to believe that this attack was from a toadfish,” he said.
“I think that’s the accurate view, not the emotional view or the defensive view.”
Initially the Queensland Ambulance Service reported the young girl and woman were treated at the Hamilton Island Medical Centre after the pair were injured by a shark while in shallow water on Catseye Beach.
A QAS spokesman said the woman who was bitten identified what she believed to be a sh shark, estimating the si size to be about 1m. He a also said lifeguards rep ported shark sightings at th the same beach.
The level of apprehension in the Whitsundays regarding sharks is high after one fatal and two extremely serious attacks about 10km from Hamilton Island since September.
Promising Melbourne surgeon Daniel Christidis, 33, was killed in an attack in November in Cid Harbour. Tasmanian woman Justine Barwick, 46, had been savaged in the same area on September 19 and was lucky to live. A day later young Melbourne schoolgirl Hannah Papps, 12, was mauled when swimming in Cid Harbour and lost her left leg.
The girl attacked yesterday was transported to Proserpine Hospital, where she was undergoing surgery late yesterday.
The Queensland Ambulance Service described the girl’s injuries as serious but not life-threatening.
“Some soft tissue was actually taken out of her foot by the bite,” QAS’ Ross Vickers said.
“The injury’s size was approximately five to 10 centimetres in size.”
He said the woman suffered a “reasonable laceration to her lower leg”. Her injuries were able to be treated at the island’s medical centre.
Mr Vickers indicated the woman’s account of a shark had been corroborated by lifeguards on Catseye Beach.
But it’s not the first time toadfish have sunk their teeth into humans around the Whitsundays. In 2014 a toadfish took a chunk of toe from 11-year-old Hayley Allen while she was kayaking off Funnel Bay.
In 1979, Margaret Lewis, 6, lost two toes to a toadfish, nicknamed Thomas the Terrible, while she waded barefoot in Shute Harbour. Thomas was also blamed for taking a chunk of flesh from the leg of a boy wading in Cid Harbour.