Surfer Toby Begg who lost leg in wild multi-pronged Great White attack returns to ocean

Begg to join memorial paddle out for fellow Port Mac surfer Zac Young, killed by shark aged nineteen.

Back in August, surfer Toby Begg was belted by a twelve-foot Great White in Port Macquarie, a holiday hamlet midway between Sydney and Byron Bay, losing half of his right leg and much of the utility in his left.

Toby Begg, who is forty-four, is one of the few human beings on earth who can say they survived multiple bites from a Great White shark.

He was dragged so far underwater it went dark and he thought he was going to drown. He was only able to swim for the surface after his foot ripped off at the ankle.

Back on the surface, the Great White hit him again, Toby Begg scrunching into a ball, which would save his life, but causing his leg to take most of the impact.

“Then he was on the surface punching it in the head for ages,” a BeachGrit source close to Beggs said. “Both his hands were balloons from hitting it. After 30 seconds it let go and he started paddling in. It’d severed the femoral artery in his leg and the only thing that saved him was there was a doctor and emergency room nurse walking on the beach (separately who didn’t know each other). His foot is gone and they’re saying his other leg might come off at the hip but they’re trying to save it. He’s a mad keen surfer and wants to get back in the water.”

After Mick Fanning called him in hospital and gave him a pep talk about how he’d bounce back Toby Begg reportedly said, ‘That was nice of him, but the shark snapped his fucking leg rope… I’ve lost my foot and maybe my leg, so I dunno what he was going on about.’”

Epic sense of humour, yes?

The off-duty doctor who was on the beach, Kurt Durbridge, recalled,  “As I reach the knee-high water, I can see a man who is as white as a ghost with horrific injuries and a massive bloody laceration to his left thigh and a traumatic amputation of his right foot.”

Anyway, Toby Begg is getting back in the water today as part of what is hoped to be a world record paddle-out for a local kid who was killed by a shark ten years ago.

Zac Young was nineteen and, armed with a fresh drivers license in his wallet, was on his first surf road trip with pals when they stopped at Coffs Harbour for a shred. Zac was hit on the legs by an eight-foot Tiger and subsequently went into cardiac rest, his last words “I love you guys.”

Zac’s daddy Kev is making a documentary of his kid’s life called, Forever Young, and want 682 surfers to join the paddle out and join hands for sixty seconds.