Posted by on December 16, 2004 at 14:52:47:
In Reply to: GREAT WHITES KILL SURFER posted by Mike on December 16, 2004 at 13:02:57:
The two great whites charged in a rare tandem attack after Nick Peterson, 18, fell from a surfboard being towed by a dinghy.
His friends, 16, watched in horror as one 4m monster tore him apart. The other shark then scavenged the remains.
A sea rescue chief said the twin attack was unprecedented, and warned the sharks "had a taste" and would be "back for more".
"I've never heard of two white pointers attacking human beings in this way," SA Sea Rescue Squadron spokesman Frasier Bell said.
"He fell off the surfboard and the shark appeared and took him,
"It tore him apart . . . apparently it tore him in half and the other shark came in and took the rest."
Mr Peterson was "scurfing" -- being towed on a surfboard behind a boat -- several hundred metres off crowded West Beach, about 10km west of the city centre, when a shark surged at him.
Witnesses said he tried to beat it off but disappeared in a massive pool of blood within seconds.
A second shark then joined the attack, striking at the boat as three 16-year-old friends tried to strike it with paddles.
"They tried everything they could think of, but unfortunately the sharks had taken him by that stage," Mr Bell said.
"They're in deep shock -- they're a wreck."
"They said it spun him around their boat, under the boat, and a second shark ripped him to pieces," beachgoer Anna Criscitelli, 31, said.
"They said it was as big and as wide as their boat".
Chris Niemoeller was swimming about 50m away. "I could see these two huge fins come out of the water. It was just ferocious," he said.
"One minute he was on the surfboard and he tried to beat it off, and the next there was just a massive pool of blood," he said. "It was over in like three seconds -- he didn't stand a chance. He was just gone."
Mr Bell said one of the sharks was believed to be about 5m long; the other about 4.5m long.
A hunt for the sharks, by air and sea, began about 3.30pm. Police patrols along the beach warned beachgoers, but the beach was not closed.
Police Chief Inspector David Lusty said a witness found the surfboard shortly before 4pm. About an hour later, searchers began finding body parts.
The four youths, all from Adelaide's western suburbs, had been on the water for just 30 minutes when the attack happened about 3.15pm.
Experts did not rule out that the larger was the same shark that has been stalking Adelaide's beaches in the past weeks.
One concerned local said authorities did little to warn of the sightings.
Gary Bittle, from the nearby Grange Surf Life Saving Club, said he saw a white pointer swim under his boat offshore at Grange last weekend.
"We assume it's the same one," Mr Bittle said.