Australian shark attack survivor says predator was ‘winking back’ at him as he fought it off

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — As shark attack survivor Mel Ismail fought the predator that severed his leg, he noticed something odd:

“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.”

When the shark swam off, he managed to struggle back to shore, the surfer and professional firefighter said in an interview that revealed new details of his near-death encounter.

He was surfing at Glenfield Beach near Geraldton on Australia’s west coast 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 that he was resting when he spotted a pod of about 20 dolphins before being hit by something big. It’s the first time he has spoken publicly about the attack.

“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 said it looked like the shark winked at him before it bit his leg.

Many sharks, including the white shark and mako shark, do not have eyelids, but when attacking prey, they roll their eyeballs backward into their sockets as a protective measure, exposing a tough layer of white cartilage. Authorities have yet to determine the species of shark that attacked Ismail.

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.

Ismail described Dunn as having “eyes like saucers.”

“The first thing he (Dunn) said to me is, ‘Where’s the shark?’” Ismail said. “I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve got a bit going on here.'”

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

A pair of teenagers helped Ismail climb into Dunn’s SUV and they drove along the beach to meet an ambulance.

“I had a heap of people laughing, keeping me alive, keeping me positive in the back,” Ismail said.

“I gave a few knuckles to the people there, because I was feeling good,” Ismail added. “I started to feel like I (was) going to make it.”

Four days after Ismail was attacked, 63-year-old swimmer Greg O’Neill was fatally mauled by a large white 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.