A woman who was attacked by a shark on a West Australian reef says all she could think of was fighting it off before it could savage her teenage son wading alongside or the 3-year-old on her hip.
Mother-of-five Becky Cooke, 38, had her heel and calf lacerated by the 2.5 meter shark as she waded across a coral reef with two of her sons at remote Warra Beach, south of Coral Bay, last Wednesday.
“All I could think of was getting it off my leg so I could get to shore because I did not know if it was alone, or if there were others sharks out there,” Becky said from her hospital bed in Perth.
She was also worried that the more sharks could come after she noticed she was bleeding.
Flanked by her husband Peter and sons, Brandon, 13, Hayden, 10, Jacob, 7, James, 6, and Ethan, 3, Cooke explained she had been wading in shallow water with Ethan and Brandon when the shark struck on day four of their nine-day holiday.
“It just felt like something had hit me, at first, I turned around and I saw all this thrashing and the water just turned red.
“My son was with me, we were walking together, I just think thank goodness it bit me, not Brandon.
The mom had her camera in her hand and son Ethan on her hip and just started hitting the shark with her camera and shaking her leg trying to get it off.
Once free, she fell into the water and realized that the injury was serious after realizing the whole water had turned red.
Luckily for them the shark left and didn’t come back.
Becky had to have an operation last night on her severe calf wounds and may loose her foot.
This family is fortunate that their mom is such a fighter and that she didn’t drop her son while fighting the shark off.
It is a common misconception that sharks only attack in deep water. They go where the action is and have been known to come in as shallow as 2 feet of water.
