{"id":735073,"date":"2026-06-14T01:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T01:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/735073\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T01:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T01:18:08","slug":"there-was-a-lot-of-blood-in-the-water-paddleboarder-rescues-woman-after-shocking-coogee-shark-attack-sydney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/735073\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There was a lot of blood in the water\u2019: paddleboarder rescues woman after \u2018shocking\u2019 Coogee shark attack | Sydney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elite paddleboarder Charlie Verco has only seen one shark bigger than the one he saw on Saturday at Sydney\u2019s Coogee beach.<\/p>\n

The North Bondi athlete was training for July\u2019s world championships in Hawaii on Saturday morning when he heard a swimmer shouting \u201cshark\u201d.<\/p>\n

As he headed towards the area of water where about three people appeared close to a large grey shadow, several swimmers attempted to climb on to his 18-foot (5.5 metre) paddleboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m familiar with shark behaviour and it looked like it was just being inquisitive, it didn\u2019t look like aggressive behaviour,\u201d he told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email <\/a><\/p>\n

Verco, a trained surf life saver, attempted to signal to the lifeguards on shore, hoping they would sound the shark alarm and clear swimmers from the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then another woman started screaming, and I could see she was being dragged around by something \u2026 there was a lot of blood in the water, it was quite shocking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shark surfaced, I saw its dorsal fin \u2013 it was big, about 3.5 metres. I\u2019ve only ever seen one shark bigger than that, and that was a tiger shark in Hawaii.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verco said the woman disappeared, then reappeared. The shark released its grip and he managed to get her to grab hold of part of his board.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then I think she lost consciousness, she couldn\u2019t hold on any more,\u201d he said. \u201cI had to try and keep hold of her with one hand and keep paddling towards shore with the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verco said it seemed like forever before the shark alarm went off and he reached the shallows with the woman. She was brought ashore by a number of bystanders.<\/p>\n

In reality, he says, paddling her back to shore took \u201cprobably only about three, maybe five minutes\u201d.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for New South Wales<\/a> Ambulance said the woman suffered arm and leg injuries and had been taken by road to St Vincent\u2019s hospital.<\/p>\n

Multiple crews treated the woman on the beach after the attack, which occurred just after 11am. The woman, who is in her 30s, was in a critical condition on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

A SLSNSW spokesperson said on Saturday all beaches from Bondi to Maroubra had been closed and would remain closed for at least 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Chief executive Steve Pearce said it was the fourth serious shark incident in Sydney since September 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are sending our best wishes to the woman involved and her family at this time, after another terrible shark incident on our coastline,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elite paddleboarder Charlie Verco has only seen one shark bigger than the one he saw on Saturday at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-735073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}