A surfer who lost part of his leg to a shark has revealed how a moment of peace suddenly turned into a chaotic fight for his life.
Mel Ismail, 56, had been watching a pod of dolphins when he was attacked at Glenfield Beach in Geraldton, 420km north of Perth, on the morning of September 13.
The off-duty firefighter said he was grabbed and dragged into the water where he came face-to-face with the shark, staring at its “big black eye”.
“I was trying to get my fingers in its eye and just pushing its eye as I was being dragged,” Ismail told the ABC.
“I personally reckon it gave me the wink, and then shut my leg off, and I knew it had taken my leg.”
Ismail recovered his board and caught a wave that pushed him closer to the beach, but he was losing strength and still had a way to go to reach safety.
Thoughts of seeing his family again drove him towards the shore and he managed to signal Shannan Dunn, who had only just arrived for his first surf in months.
The Geraldton man bravely entered the water not knowing whether the shark was still around.
“I’ve paddled basically as quick as I could to him ... I said ‘look mate, you’re alright, I’ve got you, ... get on (my) board’ ... and he said it’s taken his leg,” Dunn told 7NEWS last month.
“I just got him on the board as best I could and managed to get a couple of little (whitewash waves) to sort of start washing us into shore.
“I was cooked by the time I got to the beach.”
A couple raced over to help, making a tourniquet from a leg rope and calling triple-0.
Some local teens helped lift the injured father into Dunn’s ute so he could be driven to a waiting ambulance, with paramedics Ismail has worked with taking him to Geraldton Hospital.
Ismail’s partner Kylie Fleay, who was working her first solo shift on the hospital’s switchboard when the news filtered through to her, said she was in “awe of him”.
“First thing he says, he goes, ‘I’m going to have to be a bodyboarder now’,” Fleay told the ABC.
The species of shark is yet to be identified, and the incident is still being investigated by fisheries.
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