A shark tore off the legs of a Japanese surfer and killed him off the east coast of Australia on Monday, prompting authorities to close nearby beaches.
The great white tore through both legs and half of 41-year-old Tadashi Nakahara’s surfboard, according to the Daily Telegraph of Sydney.
Nakahara was sitting on his board waiting for a wave when he was suddenly attacked from behind, according to David Wright, mayor of the New South Wales town of Ballina near where the fatal attack happened.
Nakahara’s surf buddies rushed him to shore at Shelly Beach, but it was too late.
“Because both legs were gone, he bled to death very quickly,” Wright said.
Authorities immediately closed a huge section of coastline, looking for the ocean predator that killed Nakahara.
Just 12 miles north of Shelly Beach, surfer Jabez Reitman was attacked by a shark at Seven Mile Beach on Sunday — but fortunately survived to tell his harrowing tale.
“I just freaked out,” Reitman told reporters at the hospital on Sunday. “I thought it was a dolphin at first until I started feeling and realized it was pretty significant lacerations.”
The shark that attacked Reitman, 35, was about 7 to 10 feet long.
Nakahara knew about recent shark attacks off the Australian coast but wasn’t fazed.
“There have been a few attacks in the news and I said, `You’re still paddling around out there?’ ” a friend of his told The Telegraph. “He said he wasn’t worried.”
Nakahara, who is survived by one child, moved to Ballina two years ago and was a distributor for Webster Surfboards.
The man was living his dream, surfing in Australia, according to his friend: “He loved surfing. That was his work, that was his life.”