On Saturday, August 15, Chantelle Doyle was attacked by a great white shark at Shelly Beach in Port Macquarie, not far from the New South Wales Mid North Coast. Her husband, Mark Rapley, came to the rescue when he spotted Doyle grappling with the great white. he jumped off his surfboard and onto the shark.
The great white shark was described as being somewhere between six and 10 feet long. Rapley punched the shark repeatedly to get the shark off his wife’s leg. “I was trying to leverage punches down onto it. It feels like you’re punching a brick wall, like it’s hard,” he told the Nine Network, Australian television network.
Rapley admitted he reacted immediately in his effort to save his wife. “When you see the mother of your child, and your support, everything that’s who you are, so you just react,” he explained.
“Your body reacts to saying get off, get off. So you start punching it, you start thinking amazingly where to punch it and so you’re like, ‘I’ll just attack the eye,’ or whatever. You just start thinking differently.”
After the great white shark let go of Doyle’s leg, the couple safely got back to shore. She suffered several lacerations to her leg from the attack.
Paramedics at the scene treated Doyle before transporting her to Port Macquarie Hospital, and she was subsequently flown to Newcastle Hospital for surgery. Doyle is in stable condition, Brisbane Times reported.
“This fella paddled over and jumped off his board onto the shark and hit it to get it to release her and then assisted her back into the beach,” Steven Pearce, Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive, said, as per the Brisbane Times.
“Pretty full on, really heroic,” Pearce added.
Pearce noted that the area has experienced an abundance of shark-related activity this year. “It has been an unusually busy period for shark encounters on the Mid North Coast,” he told the Brisbane Times. “This time of year, coming out of winter, that’s when the whales migrate and you get more shark activity following the whales migrating.”
Shelly Beach was closed for the rest of the day after the attack, along with several other beaches in the area.
As of August 16, Rapley said his wife is doing well, but there could be some long-term effects for the family in the aftermath of the attack. “She is in pretty good spirits, still strong and hopefully all fine from here, but a long road to recovery,” he revealed.
