00:02The decision to go for a quick morning surf at his local spot was nothing out of the ordinary
00:08for Mel Ismail, but the Geraldton firefighter had no idea he was in for the fight of his
00:14life.
00:15I noticed a lot of dolphins.
00:16It would have been 20 of them.
00:18I went through a wave and I thought I got hit by a dolphin, no it wasn't, something grabbed
00:23me and dragged me down into the water and I went whoa and I knew it was a shark.
00:30I was hoping that it was going to let go because I was trying to get my fingers in its
00:32eye
00:33and it was pushing its eye as I was going, being dragged and I could see it like clearly
00:37the eye and I was just like trying to get my fingers in it, but it was like winking back
00:42at me and trying to push and then it just like powerfully shut my leg down and snapped
00:46it and that was it, that was going over.
00:49The shark taking Mel's leg below the knee.
00:52There was a time when once he took my leg I thought he's coming back for going, I need
00:55to get out of here.
00:56That's when I thought I need to get that wave that came in, I think as I was sitting
01:00at the back I would have been scared and more frightened about it, but I think I was like
01:05get that wave, let's get in, let's get in, let's get in.
01:07Out of breath and losing blood fast, he spotted another surfer, Shannon Dunn, racing into the
01:14water to help.
01:15I thought it might be something else going on, like maybe a heart attack or something else
01:20going on until I saw the pool of blood around you and then the clip, obviously shark.
01:25Shannon paddled Mel to shore where onlookers called triple zero and applied a tourniquet.
01:31They put Mel in the back of Shannon's four wheel drive, racing him to meet the ambulance.
01:37Now back at home, Mel is thinking about when he'll get back in the water.
01:41Yeah, I will.
01:42I love the ocean.
01:43I don't, I'll probably have to do it in chunks and small bits and I probably won't go out
01:47by myself for a little bit.
01:48We'll just see how that goes down the track.
01:51We'll see you in the back.
01:53We'll see you guys next month.
