12-year-old dies after shark bite at Vaucluse beach near Sydney

A 12-year-old boy, Nico Antic, died in hospital after a large shark bit him in both legs at a beach in Vaucluse, a Sydney suburb, authorities said. Officials said the boy was attacked after he jumped from a popular 20-foot rock ledge and that they believed the shark was a bull shark.

His parents, Lorena and Juan, confirmed his death in a statement. Police said they received a report at 4:15 p.m. that a boy had been bitten. One friend jumped into the water to rescue him and two others pulled him ashore, Superintendent Joe McNulty, commander of the police force’s Marine Area Command, told reporters.

Officers found the boy unconscious, applied two tourniquets and performed C.P.R. as they took him by boat to shore, where paramedics transported him by ambulance to a children’s hospital. An ambulance inspector, Giles Buchanan, said the boy received several blood transfusions before arriving and was in critical condition after undergoing surgery; police said the boy died at the hospital on Saturday afternoon, without naming him.

The attack was the first of four shark encounters on the New South Wales coast over a 48-hour period earlier this week, officials said. On Monday a shark bit a boy’s surfboard and, a few miles away, another surfer was bitten on the leg; on Tuesday a shark knocked a surfer off his board, leaving him hospitalized with minor injuries.

Key Topics

World, Nico Antic, Vaucluse, Sydney, New South Wales, Bull Shark