Woman in critical condition after shark attack at Coogee Beach | ABC NEWS

A woman is in a critical condition after being attacked by a shark at a Sydney beach.ABC journalist Patrick Stack was at Coogee Beach at the time of the attack and he joins us now.Hi there Patrick, there must have been a pretty scary scene.Take us through what you saw a little earlier today.

Yeah, I was extremely concerning.So I was playing in the shallows with my toddler here at Coogee Beach.You know, as you can see behind me, an absolutely beautiful winter's day.You know, lots of people swimming in the water when we heard a really, you know, chilling scream going out across the beach.And at first you wonder whether it's sort of kids mucking around or something like that.But the quick follow of the shark alarm sort of made it clear that it was something much more serious and much more sinister.

And as people sort of rushed from the water, you could see a gentleman on a sort of surf rescue boat that you'd see at any sort of beach around Australia, paddling in reverse, trying to get a woman to shore.And he was eventually assisted by another gentleman on a big paddleboard and saw the woman being pulled from the water looking in serious distress just 50 meters away.as paramedics, surf lifesavers, quickly went to her aid to try and do their best to provide her some care.A lot of conflicting reports.It's a pretty tight -knit local community, as you'd imagine in winter.It's not peak tourist season, so it's very familiar faces all down here to do their weekend swim.

hearing sort of local swimmers floating around nearby saying that they saw a shark swim underneath them.Obviously eerie sort of scenes and lots of distress amongst the community and not what you sort of expect when you come, you know, for your Saturday swim at the beach.

No, absolutely.Gosh, it must have been really scary, particularly with your little one there, Patrick.How quickly were you sort of starting to seethose paramedics and police on the scene there?We're seeing some pictures now of helicopters in the air and that sort of thing.Just how quickly, how quick was that response?

Yeah, it was a rapid turnaround from the emergency services across various, you know, disciplines and you could hear the sirens, you know, almost immediately as they sort of rushed to provide assistance.The helicopters probably came somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes after the medical staff, the police, the Surf Lifesavers had been in, sort of, doing the best they could to provide assistance to this woman.And it appeared to me as though they probably landed on Randwick Oval, which is, or Fuji Oval, which is just, you know, half a block away to hopefully take this woman to get the care that she needs.

Yeah, yeah, you're right there.We've been told by police that that helicopter landed nearby to airlift this woman to hospital.Patrick, what's the scene like behind you there now?Has it sort of calmed down in the hour or so since this has happened?

I'd say it's just like a sense of stunned silence, eerie sort of feel to it.A real sort of feeling of loss of innocence when you think about, as I say, it being a very tight -knit community.You see the same sort of faces week in, week out when you come here for a swim.It's a big swimmers, like recreational swimmers beach.You see lots of squads, lots of groups.doing their thing.

It's a very popular swim to go over to Wedding Cake Island, which is about a k and a half off Coogee Beach.So it's a real sense of, as I say, loss of innocence, because it's something that is so central to the community here in Coogee.