Sydney, Australia: A shark has attacked and killed a 40-year-old pastor who was once fishing together with his circle of relatives within the waters of Australia’s Nice Barrier Reef, officers and native media stated. The predator bit him at the neck on Saturday afternoon off Humpy Island at the nation’s east coast, emergency products and services stated.

The sufferer was once Luke Walford, a early life pastor on the Cathedral of Reward church within the central Queensland the city of Rockhampton, consistent with native media together with public broadcaster ABC.

“The person was once fishing with members of the family when he was once bitten through a shark,” Queensland state police stated in a observation.

He sustained “life-threatening accidents” and died about an hour-and-a-half later on, police stated, including {that a} record can be ready for the coroner.

They had been not able to substantiate whether or not he was once spearfishing on the time. Footage posted through Walford on social media in 2021 confirmed him aboard a ship in a wetsuit maintaining up huge fish.

A Queensland ambulance spokeswoman informed AFP on Sunday that he died on the scene after maintaining a “important life-threatening wound to his neck”.

Humpy Island, which lies within the Nice Barrier Reef’s Keppel Bay Islands Nationwide Park, has a well-liked tenting floor that provides simple get admission to to reefs for diving and snorkeling.

The rustic’s final deadly shark assault was once in December 2023, when what was once believed to be a super white killed a 15-year-old boy at a far off browsing spot in South Australia.

There were greater than 1,200 shark incidents in Australia since 1791, of which over 250 led to dying, consistent with a countrywide database.

Maximum severe bites are from white sharks, bull sharks, and tiger sharks.