Darren Mills says he received puncture wound below his knee and four lacerations up his leg after encounter in Porpoise Bay
A British surfer has told how he fought off a shark after it attacked him off the coast of New Zealand's South Island, leaving him with severe leg injuries.
Darren Mills, 28, said he was paddling in Porpoise Bay on Friday when he felt a thump from what he believed was a great white shark.
"I looked around and could see a shark had clamped down," said Mills, who is originally from Crawley, West Sussex, but now lives in Queenstown, New Zealand.
"When it hit me and sort of pushed me out and around I realised what was going on. I tried to punch it but it was more like a push."
Mills made it ashore, where friends applied a tourniquet. Recovering in hospital, he told New Zealand's One News that he had a puncture wound below his knee which had gone through to a tendon, and four lacerations up his leg.
The surfer said it may take him some time to go back in to the sea again after the "scary" experience. "When it first happened I said I wasn't even getting back in the bath tub. I just feel really, really lucky."
Experts said Mills did the right thing in trying to punch the shark and he may have been saved from worse injuries by wearing a full body suit.
The incident comes two weeks after James Grant, a junior doctor, fended off a shark at another bay to the east of Friday's incident and stitched up his own wound on the beach before enjoying a pint of beer at a nearby pub.
Grant was spearfishing with friends near Colac Bay when he was attacked by what he believed was a sevengill shark. The 24-year-old was in about two metres (6ft) of murky water when he felt a tug on his leg, which he initially thought was a friend playing a trick on him. "I looked behind to see who it was and got a bit of a shock," he told Radio New Zealand.
source Guardian
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