Official says shark bites 2 men on Great Barrier Reef

A shark seriously injured two men on Tuesday on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, an ambulance official said.

The injured men were brought by boat from the Whitsunday Islands to the mainland town of Airlie Beach where paramedics were waiting for them, Queensland state Ambulance Service spokeswoman to Mel Mangan said.

“Two male patients suffered serious lower limb injuries as the result of a shark bite,” Mangan said.

They were expected to be flown by helicopter south to a hospital in the city of Mackay, she said.

Sydney swimmer hospitalised by harmless shark

Mangan did not know how the men came to be bitten by the shark.

A shark killed a man in November last year in a Whitsunday Islands harbor where two tourists had been mauled a month earlier.

The 33-year-old victim had been diving from a paddle board while on a yacht cruise.

The spate of attacks in the Whitsundays left authorities struggling to explain an apparent escalation in danger in the internationally renowned vacation destination. In September last year, two Australian tourists were mauled on consecutive days, one a 12-year-old girl who lost a leg.

Associated Press