Transcript of AE 1085 - The Goss: Two Kids Attacked By Shark in my Home Town!

G'day, you mob. Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English. The number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So, today I have a Goss' episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world.

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Dad, what's going on?

Hey, Pete, people are getting bitten by sharks.

I know, so this happened yesterday...

In Ocean Grove, like seriously.

...Me a message, at probably almost midnight, you were like, guess what?

Yeah, I just heard it on the late news on TV. I was just sitting up watching some rubbish on TV and they, you know, channel flicking and ran past one of the commercial TV news' and, you know, it was breaking news. It was broken about three hours before that, but, you know, shark attack, people bitten by a shark on Ocean Grove Main Beach, where we've been going for 25 years to swim, so.

Well, I've surfed there quite a bit when I was younger. So, yeah, it's crazy. So, what does the article here says? A Victorian beach remains closed this morning after a shark attack on Monday night left two teens injured. The girl, 15, and a boy, 16, were bitten while swimming at Ocean Grove Beach near Geelong near dusk. That's an interesting sentence.

Yes, it's a long sentence. A whole series of phrases tied together.

So, here we go. The pair was taken to Geelong Hospital for treatment and were in a stable condition. Locals said the girl was bitten on the lower leg by a reef shark in shallow water. The boy came to her rescue and was also bitten when he tried to fight off the shark.

So, you know, that's incredible. I didn't realise, though, that it was a reef shark. I thought it must be a pretty small shark because...

Yeah, I just saw that in the story as well. But, you know, if you'd asked me yesterday, do we get reef sharks down here? I would have said, no, but.

Well, I wonder if they're just using that as a catch all term for just...

Grey small shark. Yeah.

Because I don't know where the reefs are here. Like if there are...

No, reef sharks occur on coral reefs, they're tropical...

Exactly.

...Or subtropical. Anyway, it seems like it was some kind of a small shark. It doesn't seem like it was a very big one because one the kids seem to be, at least in the photos that I saw, intact, though, you know, obviously having been bitten.

But they both survived. And you would imagine that a more dangerous shark like a tiger shark, bull shark or great white shark, the ones that are the man eaters and killers would probably leave a little more devastation.

They would have taken a fair chunk.

Yeah, especially out of a small person, right, a teenager.

Teenage girl in particular. Yeah.

Yeah, so how do you feel about that?

...Again, you never know who's around you where, you know, other than the boy who came to rescue the girl, you know, the first person on there was a trauma nurse who just happened to be swimming with her kids.

Yeah, isn't that crazy. So, what is a trauma nurse? For those who may not know.

She would work in emergency, so people would come in typically with accidents...

Yeah.

...You know, sporting injuries, wounds, yeah, being bitten by a shark. That would have been exactly the thing she would have been dealing with in the hospital.

Yeah.

And she was on site to obviously give first aid, but.

Are we seeing more and more of these attacks do you think? Around Australia at least?

I don't know. I'd have to look at statistics. I suspect it isn't changing much. If you counter the numbers with the population of the country, so, you know, when I was a kid, there were, you know, one or two shark attacks or at least sightings or near attacks a year. I suspect we haven't got many more than that now, except that, you know, that was in Victoria.

Yeah.

Australia was obviously a larger number. I suspect we've got more than that now, but not hugely more. It's just I suspect it's probably mostly around there are more people in the water, so there's- And there are probably fewer sharks than there were when I was a kid, so.

Wouldn't there be more because weren't they hunting them like crazy back then?

Yeah, they were not so much then. But, you know, in between time, I think shark populations dived in the sort of 70s and 80s...

Yeah.

...And they've increased again. But, you know, who knows? It's difficult to tell without looking at long term data on shark numbers and shark attack numbers. But it's not unusual, and it hasn't been unusual for a long time around Australian beaches, but it's certainly unusual at Ocean Grove, where we are.

You know, I think in the 25 plus years that we've lived down here, the beach has never been closed to my knowledge because of a shark attack. There have been shark sightings and they closed the beach for an hour and then the sharks gone. And every summer you'll see, you know, helicopters and planes patrolling up and down the beach, just checking for sharks.

And every now and then there's, you know, the siren will go off and warn people to get out of the water. And then an hour later, you're allowed back in again, because they're gone. But this is the first time, to my knowledge, that we've had an attack down here in that 25-year period.

Well, it's also because it's a sort of shallow, sandy beach, right. So, there's not- There aren't...

Your average great whites are not going to be bumping into one metre of water.

That'd be terrifying.

Yeah.

You'd see it coming, but Jesus. Yeah, it is funny, though, because it's, yeah, this is one of my nightmares I think would be being attacked by a shark like that. It's just horrifying, especially when it's like just below the water and you can't even really see it before it comes, right.

Yeah, other than in, you know, swimming in the tropics where you see reef sharks and hammerheads and things, you know, around here, you know, southern Australia, I've only ever seen a shark in the water once while I've been in the water.

It's funny, too. I can handle swimming with sharks when I'm scuba diving or snorkelling because you kind of keeping an eye on them, so you know you're there and you can see them. And I remember when we went to Raine Island, we were snorkelling and there was a tiger shark with us. But a bunch of the guys with us just had wooden sticks to keep it away if it got too close.

And I was like, I remember sort of being like, yeah, fuck this. I'm getting out, you know, like, that's a man eater there. Like, that's a three-metre tiger shark. Nah, I'm good. I think I'll stay in the boat or on the land. Yeah, I did that once and was just like, yeah, fuck this, this is nuts.

But yeah, it is interesting that for me, I can handle that sort of thing. Like I remember, reef sharks in particular were never a big deal whenever I went to Raine Island or to Queensland to do the turtle tagging stuff. And there's more of those sharks around because of the turtles and everything...

Yes.

...It was never an issue. But then to think about surfing in the water where you're not paying attention to what's underneath the water...

Well, that's the only time I've seen it. It was at Pambula Beach on southern New South Wales when I was about 15...

Yeah.

...And body surfing, and body surfing you're only concentrating on one thing and that's just swimming as fast as you can to catch the wave...

Yeah.

...And then you're, you know, in the wave and bouncing around. And this shark, just which was cruising along on the front of the wave, just cruised in front of me and went.

Jesus.

And I went, uh, keep going into the beach. And as soon as I saw it, then the siren went off and everybody was going in, but...

Did you...

...It was one of those ones where you go, mmm, no. And it's highly unlikely that while you're actually in a wave that it's going to attack you, but.

There's some, though. Have you seen that great white shark attack where the guys on the board and it grabs the board and just rips it off him? And you're just like, good God. But there was one recently, I don't know if you saw this, but there were- I think it was the New South Wales coast where they- There were a few surfers, and the video shows them just swimming into the rocks.

And then as they get there, they're getting charged by a small, great white, like it comes within a few metres of them and then just turns around and bails. But they had been- It had been swimming around and they thought it was a seal because they saw the fin, they thought that the seal was on its side, and it brought its flipper up.

And then they realised it was a shark and they were like, shit, get in, get in. So, they were all swimming frantically. But and then you can see it coming up behind them and you're like, good God. So, yeah, it is nuts. But yeah, hopefully these kids are okay. I assume they are.

But it would be interesting if they're not physically, you know, kind of injured for the rest of their lives. It'll be interesting to know what happens mentally because it seems like there are people that go both ways after a shark attack.

Yes.

Sometimes they get straight back in the water and they're like, yeah, I'm taking this on by the, you know, the teeth...

Yeah.

...Pun intended. And then there are others that are just like, I'm...

I'm never going in the water again.

...I'm taking up hiking. Yeah.

I'm not even going to have a bath.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. Jesus. So, anyway, would you be keen to get back in the water in Ocean Grove any time soon? Or do you think it's the kind of thing where you're just like, yeah, nah?

I- Look, I probably only go swimming three or four times a year nowadays, but it probably won't change what I do. But, you know, I'm no longer in the, you know, because I don't body- You know, surf with a board, so I'm no longer fit enough to be swimming out the back, catching the big waves anymore. So, I think you'd be pretty stiff to be bitten by a shark in where I'm catching waves, so.

Yeah, no, that's it, in ankle deep water. He got me. He got me.

Yes, exactly. Scraping the belly along the sand.

All right, far out, dad. Good episode. I guess we'll see you guys in the next one. Hope you enjoyed it.

See ya!

See ya!

Alrighty, you mob. Thank you so much for listening to or watching this episode of The Goss'. If you would like to watch the video if you're currently listening to it and not watching it, you can do so on the Aussie English Channel on YouTube. You'll be able to subscribe to that, just search "Aussie English" on YouTube.

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I'm your host, Pete. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you have a ripper of a day, and I will see you next time. Peace!