Shark attacks
A 17-year-old surfer has "severe lacerations" after being attacked by a shark while surfing with friends in Ballina, Australia.

Cooper Allen was on the first day of the spring holiday when the attack happened at the New South Wales beach.

The shark tore into his hip and thigh, narrowly missing a major artery.

Teeth marks on the board suggest it was a great white between 2.5 and 3 metres in length, local police said.

However, Mr Allen's injuries could have been far worse had the shark not bitten into his surfboard first before sinking its teeth into his leg.


"Apparently the prime attack was on the board, so it took the brunt," Craig Nolan, president of Ballina Lighthouse and Lismore Surf Lifesaving, told ABC.

Mayor of Ballina, David Wright, said the shark had approached from behind, wrapping its jaws around the rear of the surfboard, with its teeth biting into the teenager's leg.

Fellow surfers helped him get back to the beach where off-duty nurses gave him first aid. His injuries are not believed to be life threatening.

New South Wales police chief inspector Nicole Bruce said a great white shark, spotted from the air after the attack, had been chased out to sea by lifeguards on jet skis.

"There has been (a) sighting of a great white, a four-metre shark, further off the shore but no-one actually saw which shark it was that's bitten him," she said.

This four-metre great white was spotted after the attack.
© NSWSharkSmartThis four-metre great white was spotted after the attack.
Beaches in Ballina were closed for 24 hours after the attack.

Japanese tourist Tadashi Nakahara, 41, died after losing both his legs in a great white attack at Lighthouse Beach in February last year.

Since then, four people have been taken to hospital after attacks in the Ballina area and there have been other near misses, according to mayor David Wright.


Efforts to stop the predators approaching beaches have proved difficult.

A trial of a 700-metre shark net at Lighthouse Beach and nearby Lennox Head had to be scrapped recently because of rough conditions and "maintenance issues".

The state government is now set to fund drones to try to spot approaching sharks and reassure people who have been put off visiting the area.