An Italian tourist who lost his leg to a “monster” shark off an Australian beach said he did not believe he would survive the attack.
Matteo Mariotti, 20, from Parma, was snorkelling at 1770 Beach in Queensland last Friday when he was attacked – and immediately started filming.
“I wanted to say goodbye,” he said.
“I never thought I’d survive that monster.”
The marine biology student told Italian newspaper Gazetta di Parma that he went to the beach to clear his head after learning his grandfather had died.
“I needed to relax and I thought about taking a swim not far from the shore, but after a few steps in the water, I felt a terrible pain in a foot,” he said.
The shark soon had his whole leg in its mouth and began to pull him away from the shore as he struggled to free himself, eventually managing to widen the animal’s mouth enough to get loose “even though from the knee down I could tell there was nothing left”.
NZ Herald
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