A 35-year-old woman was critically injured by a 3.5-meter white shark off Coogee Beach in Sydney on Saturday. The woman, who was swimming with two friends 30 meters from the beach, suffered serious leg and arm injuries in the attack at 11:15 a.m.

Lifeguard Charlie Verco, who was in the area on his paddleboard, was the first rescuer to the scene. Verco said he saw the shark come out of the water and was shocked by its size. He kept paddling towards the woman and managed to grab her by an arm after the shark took her underwater.

An off-duty hospital doctor, Ian Ferguson, was at the beach with his young family when he heard screaming and saw a big cloud of blood in the water. Ferguson and others applied tourniquets to the woman’s wounds after she reached the beach. She had a 30-centimeter wide bite on her thigh, with flesh removed and bone exposed, and a similar wound to her arm.

The woman was taken to a rugby field near the beach, from where she was flown by helicopter to a hospital. Police described her condition as critical. This incident is the latest in a series of shark attacks off the Australian coast, with three spearfishing divers killed by sharks since May 16.

Original reporting: NBC6 Miami — read the source article.