"Unlikely to be any miraculous recovery."
The popular Sunshine Coast surfer Joe Hoffman, who was attacked by a ten-foot Great White at Crescent Head on July 5, ain’t one to complain.
In between thirty hours of surgeries, Joe told his ol boy Bill that he was “glad it was me and not one of the young kids out there.”
Surgeons expect Joe, who is twenty-five and whose arm was mauled from the wrist to his bicep, will, at best, only regain a limited use of his right arm, if at all.
“Everything was destroyed,” Bill told the Murdoch press in his only interview. “His body as he knew it won’t return.”
Leg nerves have been transplanted to his arm, a vein taken from a foot, a piece of artery replaced.
“Rehab is going to be lengthy and it’s going to ask a lot of questions of him. He’s got a big challenge in front of him. They’ve borrowed bits from all over his body (to repair his arm),” said Bill, adding his kid isn’t one for killing Whites,
“There is absolutely no shark hate in our family, Joe accepts that surfers enter their environment. We’re always aware of their presence and the risk of injury is slight. He was brought up in the surf 400m from our family home. People who don’t want to surf with sharks should go to a wave pool.”