Local: “We call this a Ballina hickey!”

A teen surfer was hit by a great white yesterday. Here's a photo of his wound!

If you follow the news, you would’ve heard about a teenage surfer being hit by a great white at Ballina yesterday. Bit on the leg, didn’t die. Will exit hospital with a hell of a story, will never want for female company etc.

News? Didn’t feel like it.

The coastal town of Ballina, which is just south of Lennox Head and Byron Bay, has become ground zero for great white attacks in Australia, surpassing even the Margaret River area. A bite that isn’t fatal and with no limb disappeared, feels like just another pencil scratching in the diary of attacks there. Weird thing is, although Ballina, whose best waves form off the two jetties that straddle the Richmond river (North Wall, rights, South Wall, lefts) has always had a shark reputation, it was for the bull sharks that hang in the river not great whites.

For whatever reason, great whites prowl the joint now.

This is how your favourite shark bounty hunter Fred Pawle reported the attack: 

“He said, ‘you can call my dad, but don’t tell mum yet’,” said local surfer Dan Webber, who was in the water 5m away when the attack happened at Ballina, NSW and raised the alarm.

Mr Webber said Cooper, who lives across the road from the beach at North Wall and is one of the most regular teenagers in the water, was extremely lucky, and is likely to make a full recovery. He added that Cooper is an HSC student at one of the local schools.

“I’m no doctor, but I think he’s going to be fine,” Mr Webber said, still shaking from the experience.

There were four “huge” gashes in his leg about 5cm apart. “So the shark was a massive f**king thing,” he said.

Mr Webber was on his way out to join Cooper and his two mates when the attack happened. He was wading in waist-deep water when he saw a dark object in the water. What unfolded then was similar to what famously happened to pro surfer Mick Fanning last year, he said.

“His two mates swam up to him, and I joined them,” he said. “He’s just swimming backwards away from it. I think it (the shark) was tangled up in his legrope. I saw the dorsal and the tail fin thrashing around.

“He’s looked at me and said, ‘get someone to call an ambulance’. He was so calm and in control.”

Mr Webber screamed at two surf lifesavers who were erecting flags on the beach. He was surprised that the response was not urgent.

“Everyone was just standing around. It was like a whole minute of me screaming. But I was screaming for an ambulance. I should have screamed shark.”

Anyway, the attack was biz as usual in Ballina.

But what excited me was the graphic photo of the wound (main photo). Those teeth marks. Can you imagine the scar?

And, here, is the presumed attack shark. Ooowee, he’s big.

Have you ever wondered how to kill a great white? Click here. (It ain’t that hard. But you must have the advantage of being on a boat.)

Have you ever wondered how to humanely rid an area of great white sharks? You can click here!