Re: 01/27/2008 Jarryd Tinson (Australia)
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:02 pm
12:00a.m. 29 January 2008
| By Sam Benger
Tuna boat deckhand Kusnadi brandishes the knife he used to cut off the head of a mako shark which was biting his mate's leg. Photo: Chris McCormack/172387
Crew members on board the tuna boat the Straight Shooter docked at Mooloolaba yesterday, telling how they hacked off a shark’s head as it latched on to their mate’s leg on Sunday.
Fishermen Zac Perry, Jack Wisse and Luke King, from NSW, along with Indonesian deckhand Kusnadi , were on hand when 20-year-old Jarryd Tinson was attacked by a 3m mako shark while they were fishing 200km off Coolangatta.
The shark was hauled on board the ship with a swordfish and tuna catch early on Sunday morning.
The crew said Jarryd had tried to step over the shark and accidentally stepped on its tail, causing it to whip around and grab hold of his right leg, just behind the knee.
A quick-thinking Kusnadi then grabbed a knife used to clean fish and rushed to his friend’s aid.
He said that he first cut the shark’s tail as it thrashed around on the deck and then managed to hack off its head with the machete.
Kusnadi said while the incident was frightening, it was all over in a matter of minutes.
He said the boat’s skipper, Adam Whan, prised the shark’s jaws off Jarryd’s leg with his bare hands before stitching up the wound and calling the paramedics.
Crewmate Zac Perry said the bite victim was in shock and “pretty stressed” when the attack happened.
“He wasn’t too bad – he just yelled, ‘Get it off me!’ and we were just trying to smash the shark and get it off him because it was clamped on to his leg.
“(These sharks) normally try to do like a death roll when they grip onto something, but luckily this one was pretty calm.”
Luke, a tuna fisherman for five years, said while he had never seen a shark attack before, it was common for the fishermen to pull up a mako shark attached to long lines used to catch tuna and swordfish.
“We pull up a couple every time we go out,” he said.
“This one was about 100kg, but I’ve seen them up to 400 or 500kg and they’re usually pretty aggressive. They thrash around a bit.
“But Jarryd was pretty lucky because this shark was pretty calm.
“It could’ve been a lot worse because where it bit him was right near an artery (behind his knee).”
Luke said the cut was deep and there was a concern that the wound could become infected, so paramedics airlifted Jarryd to the Gold Coast Hospital.
He said the crew had spoken to him yesterday and he was in good spirits. He was expected to have a skin graft while in hospital.
But Luke said the shark attack would not deter the crew from carrying out their jobs in the future, and they planned to head back out to sea on Friday.
As for the shark, he said the crew had kept its body, but were forced to throw the head back into the ocean in accordance with fishing regulations.
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/jan/29/its-head/