Hero bystander jumped in sea to save stranger being attacked by a shark: ‘I just have to save this woman'
A heroic Australian man has told of how he jumped into the Australian ocean to save a stranger who was being mauled by a shark.
Blake Donaldson and his partner were the only other people at Gunyah Beach in Bundeena last month when they heard Mangyon 'Mani' Zhang, 57, scream for help as a bull shark clamped its jaws on her right leg.
'I just [had] to jump in,' he told Australia's '60 Minutes.' 'The fight or flight kicks in, and I just made the decision. Sure there could be a shark but my reaction was, 'I just have to save this woman,'' he recalled.
'I wasn't thinking about the shark, I wasn't thinking about my own safety — I just can't watch this woman drown,' he added.
3 Blake Donaldson jumped into the ocean to save a woman from a shark attack.
60 Minutes Australia
'Either you watch someone drown or you go out and help them. A couple seconds could mean someone's life.'
3 Zhang was in critical condition after the bull shark bit her last month.
60 Minutes Australia
3 Zhang told Donaldson he was her 'lifesaver and hero.'
X / @Willvonstraya
Donaldson pulled Zhang to the shore and his partner, Ellen Melchert, immediately began applying first aid on the 15-inch wound around the attacked stranger's knee..
Zhang lost a 'catastrophic amount' of blood, said Marco Aielli, an intensive care paramedic who responded to the scene.
Zhang lost consciousness, only waking after her first surgery hours later, she told '60 Minutes.'
Donaldson and Zhang had an emotional reunion on the program a month after the attack.
'You saved my life. Words…cannot express … how thankful I am,' she told him, calling him her 'lifesaver and hero.'
Donaldson replied modestly: 'They say, 'You're a hero.' I don't think about it, but then it sort of does hit you and makes you realize you did save someone.'
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