The injury was severe and a bone was broken. Crago’s training kicked in. “I just focused on what I had to do,which was to stem the blood flow and bandage the leg as best I could with what I had,and put a tourniquet on.”
There was blood in the water and on the wharf. O’Neill began drifting into unconsciousness,Crago said. “But because people around her were reassuring her,she did remain conscious for the whole ordeal. She was so brave. She was so polite. She was saying ‘thank you’.”
Another neighbour,Michael Porter,also heard a muffled cry for help just before 8pm on Monday. He looked out of the window to see O’Neill clinging to a ladder on the wharf,trying to climb up as she dragged her bleeding leg,“which was completely open and full of dark red blood”,he said.
He called paramedics as neighbours rushed downstairs with towels to stop the bleeding. He,too,commented on O’Neill’s bravery. “It was surreal,we’ve always been worried and known about sharks in the harbour,” he said. “It’s only now that it feels very real.”
O’Neill,a microbiologist,was in a stable condition at St Vincent’s Hospital on Tuesday evening. Nine News reported that surgery had been successful and doctors were confident they would be able to save her leg.
Witnesses say she had been swimming around moored boats outside the netted ocean pool next to her Billyard Avenue studio when the attack occurred.