Swimmer mauled to death by fifteen-foot Great White shark in front of eye-witnesses at popular Sydney beach, “It was terrible. I am shaking. I keep vomiting… the splash looked like a car landed in the water”

"It came back and swallowed parts of his body and that was it. It disappeared."  

(Editor’s note: This story was previously titled Rock fisherman killed by a fifteen-foot Great White after slipping off rocks in front of eye-witnesses at popular Sydney beach, “It was terrible. I am shaking. I keep vomiting… the splash looked like a car landed in the water”. The title and pertinent details have been changed as new details came to light.)

A swimmer was hit and killed by a fifteen-foot Great White shark at Little Bay, a few clicks south of Maroubra beach in Sydney’s south-east on Wednesday afternoon. 

Simon Nellist, who was thirty-five, was practising for an upcoming charity swim when the White hit.

Fisherman Kris Linto said he saw the White attack.

“The shark came and attacked them vertically,” Linto told Nine News. “We heard a yell and then turned around. [The splash] looked like a car just landed in the water.”

Another fisherman said the man was in front of him when he was dragged underwater by the Great White. 

“When he went down there were so many splashes. It was terrible. I am shaking,” he told ABC news. I keep vomiting. It’s very, very upsetting “He just …enjoying the day, but that shark took his life.”

There’s a video kicking around of the attack but I ain’t watching it.

Here’s some of the dialogue.

“Someone just got eaten by a shark. Oh man! Oh no! That’s insane. That’s a Great White shark.”

“The person’s still there!”

“I just saw a four to five metre great white explode on the surface just here on a swimmer and it was like a car landing in the water.”

“Fuck man, I heard a scream and the shark was just chomping on his body and the body was in half just off the rocks here.”

“It came back and swallowed parts of his body and that was it. It disappeared.”

Half of Nellist’s body was recovered. 

Six months ago Nellist posted on Facebook, “Shark net and drum lines protect no one and kill all kinds of marine life each year.

It was the first fatal shark attack in Sydney since 1963 when the smoking hot actress Marcia Hathaway was hit in Sydney Harbour although not, as you know, the first, or last, fatal Great White attack in Australia where the fish has been afforded federal protection since 1999. 

Last week, a twenty-year-old girl was hit by a Great White at Esperance’s notorious Kelpies beach, the site of multiple fatal Great White attacks over the course of the last five years.