SYDNEY — An Irish doctor out for a jog on Sydney’s Manly beach helped save the life of a surfer mauled by a shark, racing alongside lifeguards and a helicopter medical team to restart the man’s heart and rush him to surgery amid a spate of shark attacks along Australia’s east coast.
Brian Burns, a clinical professor of emergency medicine and emergency physician at Royal North Shore Hospital, told RTÉ’s News at One that his “training just kicked into gear” when he saw professional lifeguards performing CPR on the sand on Monday.
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“I found a young man who had clearly been pulled out of the surf following a shark bite and he was in cardiac arrest,” Burns said.
He joined lifeguards in resuscitation, moving quickly from basic life support to advanced care. “Once they arrived, we moved onto the next phase which is advanced life support and got some fluids and adrenaline into him,” he said, describing how he coordinated with the arriving helicopter paramedics and emergency doctors he knew personally.
“Once his heart started beating again, we got him to the trauma center at Royal North Shore Hospital, where I work, and he was brought directly to surgery,” he said.
Burns credited Sydney’s pre-hospital system with delivering blood products to the beach, allowing the victim to receive a massive transfusion before reaching the operating room. “By the time he was brought to hospital he had already received a large transfusion of around 12 to 13 units of blood,” he said.
The man remained in intensive care as of Tuesday, Burns said.
The attack at Manly came during an unusual burst of shark incidents in New South Wales. Authorities warned swimmers and surfers this week to avoid parts of Sydney’s coastline and other beaches in eastern Australia after four shark attacks in 48 hours. Heavy rains that have churned up murky water were blamed for increasing the risk by obscuring visibility and attracting bait fish closer to shore.
Burns said it was the first time he has treated a shark bite in the field — an event he once considered rare but is seeing more often. “Whatever is going on there seem to be more shark bites than I’ve remembered,” said Burns, who has worked in Sydney for 22 years. “You’d get a few a year now. They’re still low numbers but they are definitely increasing.” He noted that most shark bites are fatal, underscoring how critical the immediate response was in this case.
He praised surfers, lifeguards and members of the local surf club who sprinted into action. “Without skipping a beat,” he said, they launched resuscitation and organized equipment as he arrived. “In doing so, they afforded him every chance.”
Authorities were continuing aerial and water patrols along Sydney’s northern beaches on Tuesday. Public safety advisories urged people to avoid swimming at dawn and dusk, stay out of turbid water, and heed beach closures while conditions remain unsettled.
Shark incidents in New South Wales remain relatively uncommon compared with the millions of beach visits each year, experts say, but they can cluster around environmental triggers. Burns said the response at Manly — from first aid on the sand to surgical care and transfusions in transit — showed how coordinated systems can turn a lethal injury into a survivable one.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
