Lone surfer killed by shark at Cowaramup Beach in South-West
- From: AdelaideNow
- August 18, 2010
Surfer Nicholas Edwards was taken by a shark after he had been surfing the famous South Point break at the Margaret River outpost of Gracetown, WA. Pic: Channel Nine Source: No Source
Senior Constable Ross Bartley of Margaret River Police with the surfboard which was snapped in half during the shark attack at Gracetown beach. Picture: Mogens Johansen Source: AdelaideNow
Surfer Nicholas Edwards was taken by a shark after he had been surfing the famous South Point break at the Margaret River outpost of Gracetown, WA. Pic: Channel Nine Source: No Source
Surfer Nicholas Edwards was taken by a shark after he had been surfing the famous South Point break at the Margaret River outpost of Gracetown, WA. Pic: Channel Nine Source: No Source
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A SOUTH Australian man mauled to death by a shark in Western Australia yesterday once told his mother that "if I die surfing, I'll be happy".'
Nicholas Edwards, a 31-year-old father of two born in Pinnaroo, was on his surfboard yesterday morning at South Point near Gracetown, about 270km south of Perth, when he was attacked by a shark.
Despite desperate efforts by fellow surfers and ambulance officers to keep him alive, he died after suffering a severe bite to his right leg.
Police said Mr Edwards, from Busselton about 50km from Gracetown, was trying to get in one last surf before returning to his job as a miner in the WA Goldfields.
His mother, Leona Lindner, of Adelaide, today said that when her son lived on the Gold Coast he came in from a surf very quickly one day after a close call with a shark.
"I warned him all the time," Mrs Lindner told Fairfax Radio in Perth.
"I said, 'Don't go in Nick, never again', but he said, 'Mum I love surfing and if I am going to die then I will die doing something I love'.
"I have to tell you, between his mining and surfing we wondered when a phone call like this would come."
Mrs Lindner said her son loved life and surfing and that's why he had chosen to live at Busselton, in the renowned surfing region around Margaret River.
Mr Edwards, who with his wife and two children, aged two and seven, only recently moved to Busselton, was a fly-in fly-out mine worker in the northern WA Goldfields mining centre of Leinster.
Mrs Lindner, from Glengowrie, said the family was numbed by her son's death.
Fellow surfers worked to revive him and applied a makeshift tourniquet to his leg after he made it to rocks following the attack.
Ambulance officers applied CPR on the way to Margaret River Hospital but he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Beaches in the area remained closed on Wednesday morning.
Department of Fisheries WA regional manager Phil Shaw said a plane would overfly the area with fisheries officers on Wednesday morning to watch out for sharks.
An assessment would be made if a risk to people still remained and local authorities would be advised in relation to ongoing beach closures, he said.
But Mr Shaw said there was a good chance the shark that attacked Mr Edwards had moved on.
He said the department had no information as to what type of shark attacked Mr Edwards.
"We may never know," he said.
Great white sharks are common off that part of the WA coast and are a protected species but can be killed if it's deemed they pose a threat.
In 2004, local surfer Brad Smith died after a shark attack at Gracetown's Lefthanders Beach.
Gracetown also witnessed tragedy in 1996 when five adults and four children were killed in a cliff collapse near the town while watching a surfing carnival.
AAP ldj/was
