‘I just legged it’: teenage shark bite victim recalls lucky escape while surfing in South Australia | South Australia

A young surfer bitten by a shark off a South Australian beach has told how he “jumped” him and “left him back to shore”.

Oliver Tokic-Bensley, 16, was bitten on the foot while surfing near the family beach house in Middleton, 80 kilometers south of Adelaide, on Good Friday.

The 11th grader, who has been surfing “all his life”, had been in the water 100 meters off shore for about 10 minutes when the shark knocked him off his surfboard.

“He came after me,” Oliver said.

“I threw it, like you do when a crab bites your foot… and then I don’t know if it actually did any good, but it let go, and I threw it back to shore.”

He turned and saw the shark’s fin, then paddled quickly, holding his board, until a wave formed and caught him on shore to check for his injuries.

“I just started taking pictures to show my friends… it wasn’t that bad, I wasn’t in any pain or anything, I was like I should take a picture of it.”

“They were shocked too, because I’ve surfed there with most of them and it hasn’t happened again.”

The teenager said he was bitten around 4:30 p.m. and his sister called her family, then her father, Andrew Bensley, rushed her to Victor Harbor hospital.

Oliver said his wounds were washed, disinfected, x-rayed and bandaged. He is on antibiotics and avoiding putting weight on his feet, but he hoped to return to the water soon.

“Maybe it should only be two weeks, not that long,” he said.

Oliver believed the bronze whaler shark had bitten him after seeing only its fin.

Middleton beach surfers spotted a bronze whaler two weeks in advance and had been struck by sharks in recent years, but bites were “incredibly rare”, according to citizen science group Shark Watch South Australia.

Last shark bite recorded on the beach Australian Shark Incident Database In June 2014, a white shark bit a 15-year-old boy on his leg.

South Australia accounted for only 36 of Australia’s 560 shark bite reports in the database from 2000 to 2025; four of these occurred in April.

Most bites in the state were from white sharks; bronze whalers were included in only two of them. A surfer was also involved in this incident in October 2025 near Kangaroo Island, about 150 kilometers from Middleton.

Concerns about shark attacks arose in January when four bites were reported in 48 hours in New South Wales and a 12-year-old boy died. Experts have warned that heavy rain and murky waters bring small fish ashore, attracting sharks.

A windy day in Middleton churns up the water and makes it difficult to see, Oliver said.

“It was evening, a stormy, turbulent day, really dark, so I’ll probably avoid it,” he said.

“I went out a few times and nothing happened while I was at it, so I didn’t really think anything of it.”