A shark kills a woman and seriously wounds another swimmer at an Australian beach

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A shark killed a woman and seriously wounded a man taking an early morning swim with her at a national park beach on Australia’s east coast Thursday, police said.

Experts say a shark rarely attacks more than one person.

The attack occurred at Crowdy Bay National Park, which is known for beach camping, fishing spots and hiking tracks 360 kilometers (224 miles) north of Sydney.

Beaches in the area and to the north of the attack were closed to swimmers indefinitely, Police Chief Insp. Timothy Bayly said.

Emergency services were called to Kylies Beach following reports that two people in their mid-20s had been bitten by a shark at 6:30 a.m., Bayly said.

Bayly declined to detail the injuries or the circumstances of the attack. “At this stage, all I’m prepared to say is they were known to each other and they were going for a swim and the shark attacked,” Bayly told reporters.

A bystander helped the pair on the beach before ambulance paramedics arrived, but the woman died at the scene.

The man was flown by helicopter to a hospital, and paramedic Josh Smyth said the man’s condition was serious but stable.

Smyth said the bystander’s first aid might have prevented a double fatality.

“I just really need to have a shoutout to the bystander on the beach who put a makeshift tourniquet on the male’s leg which obviously potentially saved his life and allowed New South Wales Ambulance paramedics to get to him and render first aid,” Smyth told reporters.

The identities of the man and woman were not released. Media reports said they were European tourists.

Bayly said police would work with experts to determine the species of the shark responsible.

Five drumlines — baited hooks suspended from floats — were deployed off Kylies Beach in an attempt to catch the shark, the state government said.

Drumlines had are already in place to the north at Port Macquarie and to the south at Forster to reduce shark numbers.

Gavin Naylor, director of the University of Florida’s shark research program and manager of the International Shark Attack File database, said a single shark attacking more than one person was exceptionally rare.

“It is very unusual. Individual shark attacks are rare. And shark attacks on two people by the same individual is not unheard of, but it’s very rare,” Naylor said.

Naylor said he would need to know details of the sequence of the shark’s behavior Thursday to understand what had motivated it to bite.

The context of the attack was also important such as the size of the shark and whether other prey was in its vicinity.

“Sometimes younger sharks are less judicious and they can make mistakes. Where sharks are close to seal colonies and feeding, the probability (of attack) is higher,” Naylor said.

“The few bites that we do have where a single shark has bitten multiple people, it’s usually tiger sharks. We’ve never seen white sharks do that unless somebody’s heroically jumping in the way,” he added.

Two British tourists were attacked by a single shark while snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s northeast coast in 2019. One lost a foot and the other suffered leg injuries.

A shark fatally mauled a surfer off a Sydney beach in September. Two sections of the surfboard were recovered.