Justine Barwick was the first victim in a cluster of shark attacks in The Whitsundays. This is the dramatic story of how she survived and dipped back in the ocean again.
John Hadok, a doctor, was contemplating a swim off his own boat about a kilometre away when two men in a dinghy came looking for help for Justine.
When he arrived on the Topaz, the cockpit floor was slick with blood."Justine was so unwell, it was clear she'd lost a huge amount of blood. She was very pale, semi-conscious, cold. Her extremities were mottled," he says. RACQ Central Queensland Rescue Helicopter Service crew officer Ben McCauley had only been in the job for nine months when the call came through.
"But then things got a bit more difficult," Ben says with some understatement. The light was fading, they were low on fuel and they couldn't land on the beach because the tide was coming in. Nor could they winch onto the boat because of the mast and wires. Justine had to be put into an inflatable dinghy.
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