A diver fought off a great white shark that crunched his head and shoulders in its jaws by attacking its eyes with a chisel.

Eric Nerhus, 41, was diving for abalone off the southern New South Wales coast when the three-metre great white struck. It took his head, shoulders and chest into its mouth and crushed his diving mask, smashing his nose.

Dennis Luobikis, who was diving near by during the attack yesterday, said: “He was actually bitten from the head down. The shark swallowed his head.”

Mr Nerhus, a professional diver, told doctors that he fought off the shark by lunging at its head repeatedly with a metal chisel, used to ply abalone off rocks.

After releasing its grip around his head and chest, the shark struck again. It bit his torso, lacerating the diver and shredding the lower part of his wetsuit, before he beat it off again.

With blood oozing from his wounds and his wetsuit in tatters, Mr Nerhus emerged from the weedy, nine-metre (30ft) deep waters off Cape Howe, near the fishing port of Eden. “He came up to the surface shouting, ‘Help, help, there’s a shark, there’s a shark’,” said Mr Nerhus’s son, Mark, 25, who was diving with his father.

“I went over and there was a big pool of red blood. I pulled him out of the water and he was going, ‘Just get me to shore, get me to shore’.”

Divers in another boat gave first aid and one radioed his father, who was flying near by in a shark-spotting plane, to call for help.

Reece Warren, a fisherman who sped Mr Nerhus to shore, said: “He had bite marks all around his chest, on the front and on his back. He said that he was swimming through seaweed and it [the shark] just grabbed him head on.”

Rescuers believe that Mr Nerhus’s lead-lined vest protected him from fatal injury. Most divers use lead weight to submerge but abalone divers use a lead vest rather than a belt. “We’ve always felt the vest would probably help us in a shark attack and this is the first time we’ve had it confirmed,” said Mr Luobikis, a professional diver for 33 years.

The attack came as authorities in Victoria in south eastern Australia scoured the coastline for a huge shark — reported to be about five metres long — that had been seen repeatedly near a women’s surf lifesaving competition.

Last month a 15-year-old boy lost part of his leg to a shark that attacked him while he was surfing near Esperance in Western Australia and another man had his leg bitten off while surfing at Bells Beach in Victoria.

Between 1995 and 2005, Australia reported 74 shark attacks, second only to Florida, according to International Shark Attack, a monitoring group based in the United States.

Victims... and survivors

1916 Between July 1 and 12 , five swimmers were attacked by sharks along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey Atlantic coastline. The only survivor was 12-year-old Joseph Dunn

1945 After delivering the first operational atomic bomb, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by Japanese torpedoes and 900 sailors jumped into the water. Shark attacks began at sunrise and went on until 316 survivors were pulled from the water four days later

1993 Dawn Schaumann, a lifeguard, survived with her unborn child after a shark attacked her 100 yards from the Florida shore

2003 Teenager Bethany Hamilton lost her left arm in an attack by a 14ft tiger shark in Hawaii. Weeks later she was surfing again and now competes professionally

2004 J. P. Andrew, 17, lost his leg in an attack while surfing off Muizenberg beach in Cape Town. The limb was washed up four days later

Source: New York Times, USSIndianapolis.org, sharksurvivor.com, CNN

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• No apology for Germany’s own Nazi victims
• Intricate web of fear and hope tying down deal
• Victims remembered a year after Mumbai attacks