Pro surfer attacked by shark off eastern Australia

On Wednesday evening, professional surfer Brett Connellan, 22, was mauled by a shark while surfing off Bombo Beach, 75 miles south of Sydney.

Fellow surfer Joel Trist told reporters Thursday he heard his friend scream, and he paddled to him as quickly as possible. The shark was already gone, and Trist dragged Connellan onto his board and caught a wave to shore. Connellan likely would have died, Ambulance Service spokesman Terry Morrow told the Illawarra Mercury newspaper, if it weren't for two off-duty nurses on the beach who turned a surfboard leg rope into a tourniquet for his upper thigh. Connellan "lost a large proportion of his left thigh, and the quad muscle was torn away right down to the bone," Morrow said. "He could've bled to death before we arrived on scene."

Connellan was flown to a hospital in Sydney in serious condition, police said, with injuries to his thigh and hand. He said he did not see the shark, and experts are looking at his wounds to determine the size and species of the shark that attacked him, The Associated Press reports.

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