ALBANY shark attack victim Jason Cull expects to make a full recovery from his horrific ordeal last Saturday morning.
The father of two was severely injured when a white pointer shark bit into his legs, removing part of his left calf, and leaving major lacerations to his right leg.
But the incident has failed to put the St Joseph’s College English teacher off returning to the sea when he recovers.
“I would like to think I will go swimming in the ocean again, but it will probably be a little bit of time before I go in again,” he said.
“I want to make sure there’s no sharks there this time.”
Mr Cull was full of praise for his rescuer, Jo Lucas, and other surf club members who had arrived early for a surf boat training row.
“I consider myself quite fortunate and I’m very, very grateful to the Albany Surf Life Saving Club, the ambulance and hospital staff,” he said.
Mr Cull spent five hours in theatre at Albany Hospital on Saturday as doctors performed reconstructive micrcosurgery to repair tendons and tissue damage.
He was recovering at the hospital on Sunday afternoon when he spoke to the media with his wife Nicola at his side.
Mr Cull relived his ordeal, describing how he gouged the shark’s eye, forcing it to release its grip on him as it threatened to pull him under the water.
“It all happened so quickly,” he said.
“I just saw this grey shape coming towards me. Initially, I thought it was a dolphin.
“When it came up and banged straight into me, I knew it was a shark.
“I was more concerned about getting out of its mouth because it was dragging me backwards under water.
“I just remember being dragged along backwards.
“I was trying to feel for its gills but I found its eye and I stuck my finger in and that’s when it let go.”
Mr Cull said the shark continued to circle him as he tried to swim backstroke the 80 metres to shore.
The shark then turned its attention to two other swimmers, Sally Malone and Jesse Brampton, who were further from shore and heard his screams of “shark”.
At one stage he lost sight of the shark in the blood-stained water as it swam underneath him.
“I’m just grateful he didn’t come back for seconds,” Mr Cull said.
As he was beginning to tire and feel faint, Albany Surf Life Saving Club member Jo Lucas grabbed him from behind and swam him to shore.
“Thankfully she did. I do not think I would have made it the rest of the way,” Mr Cull said.
The two other swimmers followed on their backs, watching and then kicking at the shark to distract it.
Surf club members who had just arrived began first aid, wrapping the wounds with compression bandages to stop the flow of blood and administering oxygen.
Ms Malone also helped out and travelled to hospital with Mr Cull in the ambulance.
This week she was still shocked by the incident and was unable to talk about her brush with death.
Mrs Cull said she found out what had happened to her husband when she received a call from a swimmer friend.
“He was still at the beach,” she said. “It was quite frightening.”
Mrs Lucas, 52, a mother of three, has been recommended by WA Premier Alan Carpenter for an Australian Bravery Decorations Council award.
Mr Carpenter told Parliament Mrs Lucas showed unimaginable courage, and it was not an overstatement to call her a hero.
Mrs Lucas said she instinctively ran into the water to help.
“If I wasn’t there, somebody else would have probably done it,” she said.
The 10-year surf club member said she later thought she should have picked up a flotation device or a board, but there was no time.
“My only thought was getting him out of the water,” she said.
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THE last person attacked by a shark in Albany was Kevin Hulkes on November 9, 1997, while he was diving off Breaksea Island.
Mr Hulkes, then 42, was 30 metres below the surface when the shark attacked his bright yellow underwater scooter, sinking its teeth into his arm at the same time.
As the shark returned for a second attack, Mr Hulkes used the scooter to bash it on the nose, scaring it off.
He made it to the surface, where he was pulled into his boat by his dive buddy, but then had to return to the water for 45 minutes to complete decompression.
He did this on the other side of the island.
Mr Hulkes required 20 stitches in his arm and shoulder.
It was the first shark he had seen in 20 years of diving.
He was the state’s second shark attack victim in 1997.
Another person called Marris was attacked in 1996 at Mutton Bird Beach.
Surf club members said sharks were seen several years ago circling the Ellen Cove pontoon, with a confirmed sighting registered with the Shark Research Institute in 2001.
The only other recorded shark attack was in 1925, when an arm was found in a shark caught in Princess Royal Harbour.
There have been four previous sharks attacks this year in Australia.
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WHALES, pods of dolphins, and schools of herring and salmon in King George Sound could all have led to three white pointer sharks coming unusually close to shore late last week.
Several early-season whales were seen in the Sound despite the annual migration not starting next month from Antartica. Several blue whales were also seen between Michaelmas and Breaksea Islands last week before heading west.
Last Thursday evening, several locals helped manhandle a dolphin and its calf back into the water after they became beached at Middleton Beach.
Dolphins swam close to shore in Ellen Cove all weekend apparently keeping a sick dolphin company. On Monday, a dead adult dolphin washed ashore near surfer’s beach.
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SAVING the life of Jason Cull and his legs on Saturday was all in a day’s work for the doctors and nurses at Albany Hospital.
A surgical trauma team worked for five hours repairing the badly damaged left leg and other injuries to the right leg.
After Mr Cull arrived by ambulance, he was stabilised by the on-duty GP and diagnosed with soft tissue injuries.
The trauma team was led by an orthopaedic surgeon working with the nurse manager, surgical registrar and anaesthetist, and nurses.
The orthopaedic surgeon said it took about two hours to thoroughly clean the wounds of sand and seaweed, done in stages, before finishing with a “pulse lavage”.
Reconstructive surgery then began on the soft tissue injuries. This included repairs to joints, tendons, nerves and skin.
The surgeon praised the team, most of whom had been called in on their day off to assist.
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DOZENS of people flocked onto Middleton Beach to watch as the search for three white pointer sharks continued on Sunday.
A Channel Ten helicopter, a light aircraft and Department of Fisheries and Albany Sea Rescue boats scoured Ellen Cove and King George Sound searching for signs of three white pointer sharks seen the day before after the attack.
Despite chasing them well into the Sound, the larger five metre shark continued to find its way back into Ellen Cove.
By Monday morning, the usual large number of walkers doing their constitutional to Emu Point were conspicuously absent from the beach.
By the afternoon, one of the sharks had returned, possibly attracted by a dead dolphin washed up onto the beach that morning.
The beach remained closed with the situation controlled by Albany City rangers and Department of Fisheries.
Department of Fisheries Regional Manager Phil Shaw said the renewed sightings of sharks will mean that beaches between Middleton Beach and Emu Point would remain closed until the sharks moved out of the area or were herded out to sea.
“We believe at least three different great white sharks were seen in the area yesterday (May 10), by our Fisheries and Marine Officer and members of the Albany Sea Rescue Squad,” Mr Shaw said.
“Our Fisheries and Marine Officer and the volunteers successfully herded one great white shark out to sea around mid-morning, but a further two great whites were seen in the bay area later. Attempts to move them on were frustrated as the sharks doubled back towards the beaches.
“It’s not known conclusively what may be attracting these sharks to the area at present, but a Department of Fisheries vessel and sea rescue boats will continue to monitor the bay and attempt to herd the sharks out of the area.”
Mr Shaw said Albany Surf Life Saving Club members, sea rescue volunteers, City of Albany rangers, police and Fisheries and Marine Officers would continue to work together to assess the situation and see what options there might be.