Navy diver loses hand in shark attack!

This dude is a total stud!

The 31-year-old lost one hand and part of a leg in the incident shortly before 7am at the navy base near the iconic Harrys Cafe de Wheels at Woolloomooloo.

Seaman Degelder – of the Royal Australian navy’s Clearance Diving Team 1, based at HMAS Waterhen at Waverton in Sydney’s north – was carring out an anti-terrorism exercise off the HMAS Darwin docked at Garden Island at the time.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25038935-5001021,00.html

All diving operations at Garden Bay have been suspended as Navy boat crews search for the shark .

The diver was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital, where a spokesman at 11am (AEDT) said he had undergone surgery and was now in intensive care in a serious but stable condition.

“He’s improved a little bit,” the spokesman said.

“He’s out of surgery and he’s in recovery.”

Seaman Degelder  was in the water with a police diver as part of an underwater trial to test new naval defence technology at the time.

The divers and a safety boat were somewhere between HMAS Kuttabul Navy Base at Garden Island and Mrs Macquaries Chair.

Australian Fleet Commander Rear Admiral Nigel Coates said it was the first time he had heard of a navy diver being injured in such an incident.

“I believe it’s the first time that one of our divers has been attacked by a shark,” Admiral Coates told reporters in Sydney.

Since February 2, the Navy has been conducting its Kondari Trial to test new technologies designed to protect Australia’s ports, naval bases and ships from water attacks.

The trials include detecting divers with SONAR equipment and using remotely operated underwater vehicles to inspect the hulls of ships, as well as piers and surrounding sea beds.

But those operations have been called off following the attack.

“We have suspended our diving activities over this exercise until further notice,” Admiral Coates said.

“I understand there are boats out looking for the shark.”

The divers involved in the incident could not identify the species or size of the shark – but it is believed to have been a bull shark.

“The attack occurred very quickly,” Rear Admiral Coates said.

“The shark attacked the diver (and) our diver punched the shark, I believe, a couple of times.

“The shark then disappeared very quickly – it was all over, I’m told, in a few seconds.”

Rear Admiral Coates then told how Seaman Degelders fought off the beast.

“He was with a police diver, I understand, at the time because the exercise included police divers. The attack occurred on the surface,’” he said.

“He fought off the shark. He hit the shark a few times, as I understand it, and then swam a couple of metres to the safety boat which was obviously nearby.

“The safety boat people got him on board, applied first aid, rang triple-0, got him to the ambulance and up to the hospital.

“It sounds to me, initially at least, like he got to hospital very quickly, and he’s in the good hands of St Vincent’s.’”

The last shark attack in Sydney Harbour was at Athol Bay, near Taronga Zoo, in 2000, and the last fatal shark attack in the Harbour occurred in 1963 – when Martha Hathaway was killed by a bull shark at Middle Harbour.

Shark expert John West from Taronga Zoo said it was most likely the diver had been attacked by a bull shark – the most dangerous breed known to inhabit the Harbour and a known man-eater.

“If the injuries are severe, it’s more likely to be a bull shark,” shark expert John West from Taronga Zoo told AAP.

“This time of year, there’s a number of species of sharks which are in the Harbour: wobbegong, Port Jackson, as well as more dangerous types such as the bull shark and the dusky shark.

“Certainly, sharks occur in the Harbour all year round.

“The bull sharks are the most dangerous. But I don’t know what sort of shark is involved or the circumstances.”

He said bull sharks could grow to up to three-and-a-half metres and dusky sharks up to two metres.

Reader Jacob Ruru contacted us today to say that at 5pm yesterday, while fishing at Mort Bay on Thames Street Wharf, he saw a “3.5 to 4 meter bull shark chasing and leaping out of the water after bait fish”.

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