New South Wales surfer Cooper Allen, 17, has told Sunday Night about the horrifying moments a great white shark attacked him at his favourite surfing spot on the North Coast, saying it was "nothing like how I imagined it".
"It was a beautiful day ... I literally just paddled out I was sitting on my board for maybe a second and then bang. Everything [is] just going through your head, I remember thinking 'Am I going to bleed to death? Am I going to die?'," he told
![Cooper Allen recalls to Sunday Night how a great white attacked him and the 'pressure' he felt as it knocked him off his ...](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/d/z/2/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
"... I had no clue that it was anywhere near me... I've thought about a shark attack before and what's going to happen if I got attacked by a shark and it's nothing like how I imagined it."
He'd been attacked off Lighthouse Beach at Ballina on Monday, September 26, on the first day of the school holidays. It was an area that he had surfed more than a thousand times.
![A shark was spotted at Lighthouse Beach, after surfer Cooper Allen was bitten on Monday morning.](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/m/k/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
He had gone surfing at 8am for his usual two to three rides with friends Tom Harper and Jae Waters but was attacked 40 minutes into the surf and was knocked off his board and bitten on the leg.
"I felt the power of this thing and the pressure and I just fall off my board," Cooper said. "I just see a fin cutting across and I thought 'this is a shark I've just been attacked by a shark' and straight away I turn to the two people I was surfing with, Tom and Jae, and they were looking at me and their faces were just utter horror."
A distraught and emotional Tom told Sunday Night: "I just saw fins thrashing everywhere and I just saw Cooper panicking and knocked off his board. I was scared but it was a mate so you've got to help him out.
"I got Cooper and Jay was just towing him in we were going in the beach and I kept looking back to make sure it didn't come back and it was just following us, behind us all the way."
![Tom Harper was shaken by the shark stalking him and his friends after Cooper's attack.](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/d/y/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
Jae, who was on the other side, said he thought "that's a massive shark" and he made sure that he brought Cooper in to shore. "He body surfed and I caught that wave on my board."
Cooper said it was his friends that made him realise how serious it was. "I wasn't feeling the pain of the bite I was trying to tell myself I've just been bumped ... and then I looked down and I'm bit. And then I felt weak, and I thought 'I've just got to get to shore'."
![Cooper's friend Jae Waters helped bring him to shore after the shark attack.](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/d/z/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
His friends helped him to shore, where a nurse and lifesavers provided first aid before NSW Ambulance paramedics arrived, which included using a surfboard leg rope as a tourniquet.
Throughout the ordeal Cooper remained in good spirits, asking if it would get him out of sitting for his high school certificate.
![The shark, sighted off the beach where a teenager was attacked on Monday.](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/m/k/c/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
He also asked that people not tell his mother, who was 2000 kms away in Broome, what had happened but to call his father.
"I said don't call mum because I knew she was in Western Australia. It was better that she didn't worry, I guess."
![Cooper Allen, pictured with his father, was rushed to hospital after being bitten on the thigh. He was taken to Lismore ...](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/p/c/i/h/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
His mother Marika Griffiths was very aware of the risks and when she read the news about a 17-year-old being attacked at Ballina she knew "straight away if that's not Cooper it will be someone he knows".
He said if his surfboard hadn't been there he wouldn't have a leg.
![The horrific wounds on Cooper Allen's leg after being bitten by a shark at Lighthouse Beach in Ballina on Monday.](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/p/c/i/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
Four deep bite marks can be seen on Cooper's upper right thigh, which missed major arteries by centimetres.
"The photos surprised me, honestly, I got lucky it was just the outside and not the inside," Cooper said.
![Mother Marika Griffiths was upset at being so far away from her son at the time of the attack.](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/d/z/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
"I remember mum coming in and giving her a big hug and I was just crying, I wouldn't say uncontrollably but just sobs."
A 3½-metre great white shark was seen off Lighthouse Beach just after the attack.
![17-year-old surfer Cooper Allen has surfed the NSW North Coast more than one thousand times.](/web/20161009131322im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/p/c/i/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gryaxv.png/1476008552395.jpg)
Scott Wilson, a free diver, says it's a "sharky area" historically because it attracts 20,000 whales ech year, as well as dolphins and fish life.
Marine biologist, Dr Daniel Bucher, says there is no way of knowing if there were more sharks coming to the area than before.
"We're not even sure whether the sharks are even changing their behaviour in any way or we're just seeing them more because we're just more vigilat these days but it does certainly seem like there's been a cluster of incidents and if you can't put that down to a change in total shark population then it has to be a change in what they're doing in this region."
Don Munroe, surfer, says culling is necessary. "Human life is far more important than animal life," he said, and he complained that people were "playing Russian roulette" with tourists surfing over summer.
But Mr Wilson strongly disagrees and says that greater vigilance through technology helped monitor shark movements.
For Cooper, he just wants to get back in the water.
"The water is just where I like to be. I want to surf again," he said. "I don't know if I'm going as soon ... as they cut the stitches out [of my leg or] I'm going to be running down to North Wall straight out there, I wouldn't say that no way."
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