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Bailey Haffner, 20, was cleaning the hull of his friend’s boat in Matilda Bay waters yesterday when the predator emerged from the murky depths.
Haffner said the attack came without warning.
“It was quite a forceful ‘thump’, you could feel how thick it was,” Haffner told 9News.
“It knocked me as if I was in thin air.
“It all happened in a split second…(it) sort of did a turn and kicked me off the hull of the boat.”
Haffner said he was so shocked after the attack he launched himself onto the nearby jetty.
“I was just going so fast I leapt out of the water,” he said.
General Manager of Royal Perth Yacht Club Stuart Walton encountered Haffner after the encounter and said he was “quite shaken”.
“He came out of the water and said ‘right, I’m not carrying on with that job anymore,” Walton said.
“He got in his car and left”.
Mates’ fishing trip almost ruined by giant shark
Bull sharks are known to frequent the Swan River.
He was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital by ambulance with a 30cm bite to his leg after two kayakers came to his rescue.
The species is known to be aggressive and can frequent “a wide range of habitats from coastal marine and estuarine to freshwater,” according to WA’S Department of Parks and Wildlife.
