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A shark “grabbed” a 10-year-old boy from a fishing boat off Australia on Friday but swam off after his father jumped in to save him, officials said. The boy was taken to hospital in stable condition with lacerations and cuts after the attack off the coast of the island state of Tasmania, the local government reported.
The child was accompanied by his father and two other men fishing three miles from shore when the shark “grabbed him from the boat,” it said in a statement.
“The boy, who was wearing a personal flotation device, suffered lacerations to his arm, and other cuts to his chest and head,” Ambulance Tasmania said in a statement posted to Facebook.
Australia has one of the world’s highest incidences of shark attacks and there have been five fatal maulings in the country so far this year.
The most recent was a 15-year-old surfer killed last week off the country’s eastern coast. In April, a shark fatally mauled a 23-year-old Australian wildlife worker on the Great Barrier Reef.
Earlier this week, a 29-year-old woman was taking a dip off Queensland when she was set upon by an unidentified creature in the water, suffering cuts and a possible broken ankle.
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