A 12-year-old girl who was mauled by a shark and remains in a critical condition in the hospital gave a brave gesture as she was loaded into a rescue helicopter. Rescuers have described how the girl, who has been identified as Hannah Papps, smiled and gave a thumbs-up as she was loaded into the helicopter at the Whitsunday Islands at around lunchtime. Rescuers said that Hannah was 'brave' and 'stoic' in the face of horrific injuries.
A local fisherman has warned that there may be more attacks, after seeing swarms of sharks in the same area. Hannah was treated for 20 minutes on the beach, having sustained 'fairly large wounds with artery and bones, vessels, (and a) large haemorrhage' according to Queensland Ambulance Service's Tracey Eastwick. Paramedics have described how the girl put on a brave face and even gave them a smile and a thumbs-up as she was being loaded into the helicopter. Hannah underwent surgery on Thursday night and continues to fight for her life in hospital. Her family issued a statement on Friday afternoon saying that their daughter is now in a critical but stable condition at Queensland Children's Hospital. The family also thanked the emergency services for looking after the schoolgirl. 'We would like to thank everyone who has helped and cared for Hannah, including the police, emergency services and the hospital teams,' the statement said. 'We ask that everyone, including the media, please respect our family's privacy during this very difficult time so we can focus our energies on Hannah's recovery.' A local fisherman has claimed that he saw a swarm of over 1000 sharks close to where two attacks within 24 hours occurred. Ron Brennan has claimed that in his 30 years of working out at sea, he had never seen so many sharks as when he did on Tuesday and Wednesday nights near Cid Harbour.' There were hammerhead sharks, bull sharks, black-tip sharks, then we had our standard tiger sharks. 'They were eating other sharks out of the net.' The shark attack came less than 24 hours after another incident in the same stretch of water around Cid Harbour, Queensland. Tasmanian holidaymaker Justine Barwick, 45, is in a critical condition after she was attacked at Whitsundays while swimming near a yacht on Wednesday evening. The passing yacht found the woman with life-threatening bites to her right thigh and helped her out of the water.CEO for Family Based Care North West Doug Doherty confirmed it was his colleague who was the victim of the first attack. He said she had been holidaying with her husband, Craig, and friends for less than two weeks when the incident happened.'Justine is a fighter, a fit, resilient woman who is an outstanding leader in the aged and disability care sectors,' he said.
