Well-known Australian diver and skipper of the PNG-based Golden Dawn liveaboard Craig de Wit has survived a bull-shark attack in the Coral Sea.
The 55-year-old sustained significant injuries after being mauled by a 4m bull shark that approached unseen from behind him, taking his entire left arm and part of his upper abdomen in its mouth. He is now said to be stable after undergoing extensive surgery in Cairns Hospital, his arm and torso still intact.
de Wit was scuba-diving to a depth of about 15m with his wife Kamila at a remote Torres Strait reef site when the attack occurred. Despite his injuries the couple managed to make it back to their boat, where a paramedic among the group aboard was able to help provide emergency treatment.
With poor weather preventing an airlift, the boat had to make the three-hour trip to Murray Island, about 70 miles away. The diver was treated at the island’s small clinic before being transferred by helicopter to Thursday Island for further treatment, and on by aircraft to Cairns. He has been told that he faces a one-year recovery period.
“When the shark hit me I thought I was gone, I really did, because it was a very large shark – it had plenty of mouth to take me in half,” de Wit told the Cairns Post.
“I’m not blaming the shark – it tasted, said ‘OK it’s not what I was expecting’ and thankfully left us alone. I have done over 10,000 dives before, I’ve dived with sharks plenty of times, I love the creatures. I understand that bull sharks, in particular, are dangerous. I certainly won’t go looking for them, but they are on the reef, it’s their world.”
The dive-group had been investigating the state of the reefs in the area following last year’s major bleaching event.
De Wit’s liveaboard Golden Dawn runs out of Port Moresby in PNG, and a report on diving from the liveaboard is set to appear in the April issue of DIVER Magazine, out in mid-March.
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28-Jan-17
