SHARK TRAGEDY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 141, 11 December 1925, Page 9

SHARK TRAGEDY

MAN TORN IN HALVES

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY,.27th November. Every year when summer first lays her warm hand on Australia's coast and bathers are enticed into the surf, valuable lives are lost through the depredations of sharks. Sometimes foolhardiness leads, bathers into dangerous waters where the monsters lurk, as it did poor Jack Canning at Newcastle at the end of last summer, but on other occasions, a. shark will venture daringly among a crowd of bathers, attack one, and make off for the sea again after tearing his victim. It was in such circumstances that "the first shark tragedy of the 1925 summer was enacted last Sunday afternoon on the Cottesloe Beach, near Perth, Western Australia. , For thirty years the beach has been a favourite retort for bathers, and until last Sunday had enjoyed immunity from sharks for the whole of that period. All'last Sunday morning a hot easterly wind made the Perth metropolitan area oppressive,' and the Cottesloe Beach was thronged. The water was unusually calm, 'and hundreds of people were. bathing. About 4 p.m.," a woman, knee-deep in water, shouted, "Shark!" Swimmers close in rushed from the water, and thousands on shore echoed the cry, "Shark!" to warn swimmers further out. The lifeBavers' boat was launched", immediately opposite a man abont 3<Kyards out. The man 'suddenly disappeared, and the sea at the spot became ,tinged with-red. The boat was paddled frantically to the spot. The man rose face downwards, and was. grabbed immediately by the three men in the boat, but before he could be hauled aboard, the shark attacked again,' and practically severed the unfortunate swimmer. The remains of , the man were hauled on to the-boat. He was still, alive,; and. groaned, "Oh, my God." He then became unconscious. The shark rushed again, and passed under the .bpat,,, tW.hjcb... was lifted .about a foot oa-tiiJ.th>i.water. In'a few seconds the boat was beached, but the victim* was then dead. He was Simon Ettleton, aged 50 years, a bookmaker's clerk.. ■: 7 ■.:■■ .

When Ettleton was earned ashore, the bathers were all out of the water, and thousands, of horrified people saw three sharks cruising' about, 'just outside the line of breakers. One of these, probably. the attacker, followed the boat almost ashore, and continued to swim aßout near the beach until nightfall. ». Attempts to induce it to take a bait failed, and unsuccessful efforts were alao made to kill the monster by exploding dynamite near it. The Fisheries Department's launch remained near the beach all night, and on Monday trying to catch sharks, but although one of them took the bait twice, it escaped. The lifesavers in the boat displayed fine courage in their prompt, but fruitless, endeavours to rescue Bttleton. When the shark made its final rush, it lashed the three men with its tail, and they had to receive medical attention for .minor injuries. Three other lifesavers tried to swim to the assistance of Ettleton. These diverted the attention of the shark, which chased them. One'clambered into the boat, and the others, reached the shore, one of them just succeeding in escaping the monster's teeth. ■