A young woman mauled by a bull shark in Sydney Harbour was saved by a quick-thinking vet who used a tourniquet to stem her bleeding.
Emergency services rushed to a private wharf in Elizabeth Bay at 7.45 pm on Monday to find Lauren O’Neill, 29, with a severe bite to her right leg and suffering major blood loss.
Hero vet Fiona Crago and her wife Georgia, who live on the wharf, had earlier heard a shout from the victim who was bitten while swimming up to a boat.
‘We ran out, my wife’s a vet, she basically bandaged it up… bone’s broken, its pretty hectic actually,’ Georgia said.
Hero vet Fiona Crago (pictured above) applied a tourniquet to the leg of Lauren O’Neill (below), 29, on Monday evening before emergency services arrived on the scene
‘She seems to be OK, she’s in a lot of shock. So am I.
‘We kept her warm, and my wife basically bandaged her up to stop the bleeding.
‘If she got bitten (further) out there, she wouldn’t have survived.’
Ms Crago, who works in a veterinary practice in Bundanoon in NSW’s Southern Highlands, was a lawyer for 30 years before retraining as a vet a decade ago.
A friend of the couple said Ms O’Neill owes them her life.
‘Fiona knew what she was doing tonight if it wasn’t for her and her wife Georgia the poor victim would have died,’ the friend told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I’m so so proud of them, their deserve an award. That girl got lucky tonight having them home.’
One resident said there was ‘blood everywhere’ (pictured: Ms O’Neill on the wharf)
Ms Crago with her wife Georgia
Ms O’Neill was taken by ambulance to St Vincent’s hospital where she remains in a stable condition.
Elizabeth Bay resident Michael Porter, who rang triple zero, also praised Ms Crago.
‘She was an absolute hero… and I think she saved her life,’ he told the Today Show.
‘She had wraps and tourniquets and just got straight into emergency mode, and we were all just sort of there together as a team.’
Mr Porter said Ms O’Neill was swimming outside a ‘netted harbour pool,’ and was ‘swimming around the boats’.
‘Her leg was sort of trailing behind her, and the water behind her was all red with blood.
He added despite being in a ‘complete state of shock’ from the trauma of the attack, Ms O’Neill was ‘very lucid’.
Emergency services rushed to Elizabeth Bay at 7.45pm on Monday to find Ms O’Neill with a severe bite to her leg and suffering ‘major blood loss’. A blood-stained boardwalk is pictured at the scene
Ms O’Neill is treated by paramedics after the attack
One local resident is seen swimming near the jetty where Ms O’Neill was attacked
‘People were holding her hand and helping her and she was extremely brave the whole time,’ he said.
‘She had serious bleeding. Her injuries are severe,’ a NSW Ambulance spokesman told Daily Mail Australia on Monday night.
Ms O’Neill studied science at the University of Sydney and works for the NSW government in the Department of Climate Change.
She has volunteered for a range of charities and organisations from 2012, when she was 15.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms O’Neill has given her time to the SES, the Fred Hollows Foundation, Pink Ribbon Day, Daffodil Day, and Spinal Cord Injury Australia.
She has served meals for the homeless, helped create a map of wheelchair-accessible public toilets, and walked foster dogs.