ATTACKED BY SHARKS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17985, 31 January 1924, Page 12

ATTACKED BY SHARKS.

. oBOY TORN TO DEATH. Q'CB. OWX COBUESPO^DEKT.J SYDNEY, January 24. Fearfully torn by a shark, which gripped him -while ho was standing waist deep in the water, a boy of 16, named Charles Brown, bled to death in. the Parrainatta Itivcr last Saturday. Almost all the flesh was rinped from, his left side, and his right hand was badly bitten in his unavailing struggle to free himself from the monster.

With Walter Cocks, aged 17, of Granville, young Brown went to tho Parramatta River, near Asbestos Works, at Camellia, for a swim at 4 p.m. The two boys got into their swimming costumes on tho bank, and were about to enter the water when Cocks hung back. "I'm not going into the river," he said, "It looks too dangerous to pie." And so he went across to a nearby waterholo, and dived in there. It was a few minutes later that Cocks was horrified to hear a piercing scream from the river. It was followed by a despairing cry of "Oh help me, help me, Wally." Cocks tore- across to tho river bank. _ Standing waist deep in the crimsoning water, and only a Few vards away, his mate was struggling in the jaws of a shark. The monster seemed to have had hold of Brown's left side and he was endeavouring to punch it away with his right hand." In doing so his hand became caught in the shark's mouth, and before he could drag it away it had been badly bitten. It was the splashing that Brown made in his frantic endeavours to get free that alarmed the shark. Releasing its victim it glided away, just as Cocks leapt in to the assistance of his mate. He dragged Brown, who was bleeding copiously, to the bank, but too late to save him. He had died in the water a few seconds after the shark had released him.

"We went to the river together," said Cocks describing tho tragedy, "but I decided to swim in a waterhole a few yards away. We both undressed and into _ our bathing costumes. Charlie went into the river, and I went over to the bank of the water hole. A few minutes later I heard Charlie cry out. I rushed hack and saw his splashing the discoloured water. He was only a few feet out. I jumped in and brought him to the bank. As we reached the shore the shark made another rush at us, but we got away before he got close enough to bite again. After I got Charlie on to the bank I could seo the shark swimming about in the river. It was about eight to ten feet long."

Cocks said that he thought Brown died just as he pulled him up on to the bank.