Surfer’s miracle escape from shark

A surfer who fought off a shark with his bare hands during a competition in South Africa has returned home to Australia “without a scratch on me”.

Mick Fanning, 34, appeared at a news conference in Sydney before heading home to the Gold Coast with a story he will be telling for the rest of his life.

“It was so close. I’m doing okay, though,” he said. “I haven’t got a scratch on me. Just more of an emotional, mental sort of trauma right now.

“To walk away from a shark attack with not a scratch on you – it is a miracle really.”

Fanning was competing in the final of the JBay Open, the World Surf League event at Jeffreys Bay on South Africa’s east coast, when he was bumped off his board by a shark.

Fanning said at first he tried to swim away but then decided to defend himself, and turned to punch the shark in the back. He was next seen furiously swimming towards a boat, where he was helped out of the water and back to shore.