Shark attack survivor Mel Ismail speaks out after losing leg surfing

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Shark attack survivor Mel Ismail has spoken publicly for the first time since his leg was severed while surfing on the Australian west coast in September, sharing previously unknown details of his near-death encounter.

The professional firefighter was surfing at Glenfield Beach near Geraldton when he was attacked on Sept. 14.

He lost his right leg below the knee.

Ismail recalled in an Australian Broadcasting Corp. interview broadcast on Thursday sitting out the back of the surf break and spotting a pod of about 20 dolphins before being hit by something big.

“I thought I got hit by a dolphin, initially,” Ismail said.

“And suddenly — bang — something grabbed me and dragged me down into the water. And I knew it was a shark,” Ismail added.

Ismail believed the shark winked at him before it bit his leg.

“I got to a point where I saw its eye … a big black eye,” Ismail said.

“But it was winking back at me — I was trying to get my fingers in its eye and just pushing its eye as I was being dragged,” Ismail added.

Alone and bleeding at the back of the surf break, Ismail caught a wave that took him about 20 meters (66 feet) closer to shore.

Ismail said he was out of breath and losing strength when he spotted surfer Shannan Dunn coming down the dunes on to the beach.

Dunn went to Ismail’s rescue, helping the shark victim on to Dunn’s board.

Once they returned to the beach, an onlooker crafted a tourniquet for Ismail using a leg rope.

Dunn drove Ismail along the beach to meet an ambulance.

Four days after Ismail was attacked, 63-year-old swimmer Greg O’Neill was fatally mauled by a shark. O’Neill was attacked off Sorrento Beach in Perth’s northern suburbs, around 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Geraldton.

Ismail said he intends to return to the surf as a bodyboarder.

There have been five fatal shark attacks in Australia this year.

Three spearfishing divers were killed by sharks off the Australian coast in four weeks over May and June. In January, a 12-year-old boy died in a hospital days after he was mauled by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor.

Australia has averaged between two and three fatal shark attacks a year since 2000, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database, a partnership including Taronga Conservation Society Australia, Flinders University and the New South Wales state government.