Surfer attacked after bodyboarder mauled

A great white shark. Photo / Clinton Duffy, DoC

Mayor of Ballina Shire Council says he is starting to feel like the mayor in the Jaws blockbuster.

A surfer was knocked off his board by a shark on the New South Wales north coast yesterday, just kilometres from where a bodyboarder was mauled by a suspected great white less than 24 hours earlier.

Beaches at Ballina were closed and young participants in a major junior surfing contest were pulled out of the water after 51-year-old Mick Hoile's board was rammed and he was tossed into the air off nearby Lennox Head.

Hoile, who had been surfing with his elder brother Phil, was uninjured and managed to paddle to shore.

Matthew Lee, 32, remained in a critical condition in Gold Coast University Hospital yesterday after being attacked off Lighthouse Beach in East Ballina, less than 8km south of Lennox Head, on Thursday.

His legs were badly mauled in the incident, which came five months after a Japanese surfer, Tadashi Nakahara, 41, was killed by a great white shark off Shelly Beach, close to Lighthouse Beach.

A 4m great white was spotted by a helicopter and rescue boats after the attack on Lee. The Mayor of Ballina Shire Council, David Wright, told the Australian newspaper that he was "starting to feel like the mayor in the Jaws movie".

The Skullcandy Oz Grom Open, one of the world's biggest junior surfing competitions, was called off by police yesterday morning after the scare involving Hoile, which occurred at 8.50am local time.

Earlier, the six-day contest - involving hundreds of young surfers from around Australia - had got under way at Lennox Head after the waters were checked and deemed safe. Organisers said conditions would be monitored to see whether it could go ahead today.

The shark swam off after striking Hoile's board, which lost one of its fins and was left with six giant teeth marks.

"It happened so quickly - one minute I was sitting on my board, looking out to sea, and the next I'm in the water and facing the beach, with this huge shark next to me," said the Gold Coast teacher.

"That was probably the scariest point. I just tried to get back on my surfboard and get back to the beach as fast as I could."

After the attack on Lee, which took place at about 10am, two friends pulled him to shore. He was treated on the beach by paramedics before being flown to hospital. Wright said he was "extremely lucky" to be alive.

A permit was issued for the shark to be captured or destroyed after the attack, but by yesterday it was believed to be out of the area.

Great whites, bull sharks and tiger sharks have been spotted off the north coast recently, following humpback whales as they migrate north.

Locals say large pods of dolphins have also been seen close to shore, chasing fish.

In 2008, a 16-year-old Ballina schoolboy, Peter Edmonds, was attacked and killed by a great white shark while bodyboarding off Lighthouse Beach.

Last September, a British expat businessman, Paul Wilcox, was killed by a great white while swimming off Byron Bay's Clarke Beach, to the north.