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Gold Coast Surfer Killed By Shark In First Fatal Attack Since 1958

Gold Coast Surfer Killed By Shark In First Fatal Attack Since 1958

Real estate agent Nick Slater was mauled while surrounded by 40 other surfers

Delicia Smith

Delicia Smith

A surfer who was killed by a shark on the Gold Coast, Queensland, on Tuesday (8 September) has been named as 46-year-old real estate agent Nick Slater.

The longboard rider was just metres away from other surfers at Greenmount Beach in Coolangatta when he was bitten on the leg at about 5pm.

Nick Slater was killed by a shark while surfing on Tuesday.
London Estate Agents

According to witnesses who saw the attack, he suffered a massive leg wound, which stretched from his groin to below the knee.

Eyewitness Jade Parker was on the beach when attempts to pull the man from the water began.

"I spotted a board floating in the [surfing] line up, and a body was next to it," Parker told 7News.

"I just presumed he might have got knocked out, because he wasn't moving in the water.

"I ran down to the beach, dropped my board and sort of trudged through the line up to get to him.

"There were probably about three other people in the water trying to pull him in by then ... in waist-deep water."

Parker said surf lifesavers stepped in to help as soon as the surfer reached the beach.

"He was pretty much already gone by then," Parker said.

"(The wound) was from the groin area down, just below his knee, was pretty much all taken.

"There was nothing there."


Chief Lifeguard Warren Young said despite their best efforts, the man could not be saved.

"It was a pretty severe attack and the ambulance and paramedics were here and did what they could, but it was to no avail," Mr Young said.

Harrowing footage from a Swellnet surf camera shows Mr Slater sitting in the water at the end of the line-up before the shark grabs him and pulls him under.

There were around 40 other surfers in the water at the same time.

Water can be seen splashing around before the black silhouette of the shark swims away.

Surf cameras captured the moment the surfer was attacked.
Swellnet

The incident is the first shark attack on the Gold Coast since a 20-year-old surfer received non-fatal injuries at Nobbys Beach in 2012, and the first death in the region since 1958.

Greenmount Beach is one of numerous Gold Coast beaches with shark nets in place.

According to Queensland's Department of Agriculture and Fisheries shark net program website warns nets do not provide 'an impenetrable barrier between sharks and humans'.

"They're intended to catch 'resident sharks' and sharks that pass through the area while feeding on fish bait," the website says.

Swimmers and suffers on the Gold Coast, from Burleigh to the New South Wales border, are currently being urged not to go into the water as authorities search for the 3.5 metre Great White shark that is thought to have attacked local surfer Nick Slater.

Featured Image Credit: Nine News

Topics: News, Animals, Australia, shark