'Like a scene off Jaws.' Shark kills swimmer at busy beach - USA Today

A man is dead after a large shark attacked him as he swam at a busy Western Australia beach the morning of Sept. 18, horrifying onlookers in both the water and on shore.

The Western Australia Police Force said officials responded to an incident involving a shark around 10:30 a.m. local time at Sorrento Beach.

The area is a popular swimming spot just over 12 miles northwest of Perth.

"It was reported a male swimmer had been bitten by a shark while swimming along the coast," police said in a statement.

"I couldn't believe there was that much blood (that had) come out of a human body," Witness Ryan Rowe told The West Australian newspaper.

Witness Ingrid Mitchell, who said she swims daily at the beach, told local TV station 7news.com the man was dragged out into deeper water “at a rate of knots."

"How do you just watch someone be mauled to pieces in front of you, basically? It's pretty hard," Mitchell told the outlet.

Another witness, Darrel Haythornthwaite, told the outlet the attack “was like a scene off Jaws”.

“I just can’t believe it,” Haythornthwaite said, adding the victim's friend made it back to shore. “He felt bad because he didn’t go back to save his mate and I said, ‘Nah you couldn’t have done that.’ There’s nothing that anyone could have done.”

It was not immediately known what species of shark attacked the swimmer, but a more than 16-foot great white shark was reported to the monitoring website SharkSmart at a nearby reef just after noon the same day of the mauling.

The mauling marked the second shark attack in Western Australia in less than four days.

A shark mauled a surfer at a beach in the town of Geraldton, about 250 miles north of Perth. The surfer lost his foot in the attack and suffered serious leg injuries, local media reported.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.