It was his fourth encounter with a shark, and by far the most terrifying. Australian lobster fisherman Luke Kuhn, 69, recounted on Thursday to the public broadcaster ABC how he survived an attack by a 3.5-meter-long great white shark the day before while diving with a friend at Cape Jaffa, south of Adelaide, in the state of South Australia.
“I was looking for a lobster,” 12 meters deep, “when suddenly I was pulled backwards towards the bottom by something powerful, very powerful,” he said. “The shark had grabbed my fin. He was pulling, I was pulling.” “My left foot was in his mouth. I was right next to his head,” he continued. The diver managed to free his foot from the fin and surface to alert his friend. “He was by my side in seconds and told me I looked pale.”
Luke Kuhn, nicknamed “Lucky Luke” by his friends, said he did not plan to go back diving right away. At least not until he received a shark bite-resistant wetsuit. This suit, worth $1,500 (about 900 euros), designed in Australia, was developed in 2017 in response to the increase in shark attacks.
Five deaths last year
Close to 1,300 incidents involving sharks in Australia have been recorded since 1791, with over 250 resulting in the death of the bitten individuals, according to the “Australian Shark Incident Database”. The most recent incident was in January, with the death of a 12-year-old boy in Sydney Harbour. Last year, five incidents were recorded, a record since 2020 when eight people died.
According to scientists, the increasingly frequented waters and rising ocean temperatures, which seem to affect shark migration patterns, could contribute to an increase in attacks despite overfishing depleting some species, according to scientists.
