A 34-year-old Australian surfer was bitten twice yesterday while surfing a wave off Western Australia’s rugged northern coast called Red Bluff.

According to Australian news reports the man is currently in stable condition after receiving bite wounds to his abdomen and right arm.

While there were no witnesses to the actual attack, a spokesman for the local fisheries department said that the surfer was first bitten in the abdomen, then the arm after attempting to fend off the shark when it came at him a second time.

The surfer was able to make it to the beach under his own power before being rushed to a local hospital and then was flown overnight to a trauma center in Perth, located 500 miles south of the incident.
Local officials said that they see sharks all the time (the local township is situated in a place called Shark Bay), but that there has never been a serious attack in the area despite heavy use by surfers and divers.

There have been five fatal shark attacks in Australia in the past 11 months alone.

Red Bluff point is a world-class lefthander and is a popular destination for Aussie surfers looking to find empty perfection in a remote location. It’s appeared in numerous surf films over the years.

photo credit: Wiki Commons