A 10-year-old boy "grabbed" by a shark from a fishing boat off the coast of the Australian state of Tasmania on Friday has survived the horrifying ordeal and is remarkably in a stable condition.
The child was in a fishing boat with his dad and two other men five kilometres offshore when a shark "grabbed him from the boat", authorities say.
His father jumped in the water to save him before the boy was rushed to a nearby seafood shop until the ambulance arrived.
Paramedics say the boy, who was wearing a personal flotation device, suffered lacerations to his arms, and other cuts to his chest and head, ABC Australia reports.
Witness Ben Allen was at a nearby boat ramp when the group made it back to shore.
Allen told ABC Radio Hobart the family was cleaning fish on the boat when the attack occurred.
"All of a sudden, the shark lept clean out of the water and it grabbed the little boy and pulled him straight in," Allen said.
"The father, with his natural instinct I suppose, has lept in straight after his son and managed to grab him."
Allen thinks the shark was "in feeding mode".
"There's been a couple of divers of late that have been bailed up on the bottom and they've said [sharks] have not been aggressive so he was obviously ready to feed," he told ABC Hobart. "It's just the time and place that you are obviously encountering."
