16-year-old boy mauled by shark after accidentally reeling it in from small fishing boat

Whether you’re a professional or amateur fisherman, unexpected things can crop up all the time. But you probably wouldn’t expect something this big to literally pop up and attack you out of nowhere.

Well, for one unfortunate teenager, this situation left him with life-changing injuries.

It was normal day out at sea with his father in South Australia, when something terrifying took over their small fishing boat.

The 16-year-old had been handling the line and caught something big, deciding to reel it in for a closer look.

But this was no small fish; it was a great white shark.

As something like this only comes around once in a blue moon, the teen swiftly reeled it onto the boat to take a photo of his catch, only for things to immediately take a turn for the worse.

It was moments after the snap was taken that the white pointer shark whipped around and latched on to the teens leg, mauling him.

Paramedics quickly rushed to West Beach to treat the teen after the attack and to stop the blood loss, before taking him to Royal Adelaide Hospital for further help.

After the awful incident, his dad, Michael Ness, told 10News about what occurred as the teenager was bitten: "He screamed and said 'Get it off! Get it off!' so I reached down and opened its mouth.

"Luckily enough it did open its mouth to let go and he dropped the shark back in the water."

The teens is in a stable condition following the attack. 10 News Australia

This didn’t seem to scare the teen away from his love of fishing as Ness told the news station that his son asked him as they got into the ambulance if they could ‘go back out tomorrow’.

His dad told him: "I don't know about that!"

According to reports, the youth was attacked at 1:40pm and is thankfully stable following the attack from the 6ft shark.

But the teen’s photo op called into speculation about legality as the story reached X, formerly Twitter.

10 News First reporter, Joshua Webster tweeted: “#breaking at West Beach boat ramp. 16yo boy caught a 6ft white pointer #shark on a boat, only for the shark to spin around and bite him. He’s in good spirits but taken to hospital for treatment.”

To which a commenter quipped that the teen might have been fishing illegally for the white pointer.

The teen was mauled by the great white. 10 News Australia

However, Webster confirmed that it was most likely due to simply wanting to reel in the shark momentarily, before releasing with no motive to actually fish for the shark.

This isn’t the first incident on the beach in recent times as a man was rushed to hospital, just one day earlier, after being bitten in western Australia around 12.30pm on Saturday afternoon.

However, nobody knew the man had been attacked until he appeared at the hospital, a WA Country health spokeswoman said.

The surfer admitted to The West Australian it was ‘all part of the game’ of surfing and that he was ‘shocked’.