Two British men in their 20s have been seriously injured in a shark attack while swimming at Australia’s popular Whitsunday Islands.
Alistair Raddon, from Southampton, lost his right foot, while Danny Maggs, from Plymouth, was left with a severed calf following the incident on Tuesday morning, the BBC reports.
The duo were on a snorkelling tour boat with around 20 other passengers when the attack took place near Airlie Beach, in north Queensland, adds Australian TV service 7News.
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Sky News says Raddon, 28, and Maggs, 22, were ferried seven miles by boat to shore, where they were treated by paramedics before being flown by helicopter to a hospital in the city of Mackay, about 590 miles north of Brisbane.
According to the helicopter rescue team, the pair told the crew they had been “wrestling and thrashing” in the water when the attack happened.
A Queensland Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “One of the male patients was attacked first and the shark is believed to have returned and come back and attacked the second patient.”
Although shark attacks are extremely rare, Australia has seen the second-highest number of confirmed unprovoked attacks in the world since records began in the late 16th century, with 642 attacks as of early October 2019 - before the latest incident.
The only place with more recorded attacks is the US, with 1,441.
According to the International Shark Attack File database at the Florida Museum of Natural History, there is a one in 3,748,067 chance of dying from a shark attack. This compares with a one in five chance of dying from heart disease, one in 38 from a hospital infection, and one in 79,746 from lightning.
Metro adds that “you are more likely to die after slipping in your bath than you are in a shark attack”.
Here are the ten areas with the highest number of confirmed unprovoked shark attacks since records began in 1580, according to the Florida Museum.
1. US (1,441)
2. Australia (642)
3. Republic of South Africa (255)
4. Brazil (107)
5. New Zealand (52)
6. Papua New Guinea (48)
7. Mascarene Islands (Reunion Island) (46)
8. Mexico (40)
9. Bahama Islands (29)
10. Iran (23)
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