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.