Dave Pearson

I was confused, obviously.

But I was cranky and I apparently gave the nurses a bit of a hard time for a few minutes until it sort of dawned on me what was going on.

And I said, what the hell am I doing here?

And the nurse said, you've been attacked by a shark, isn't it?

I used a bit of choice language and I said, no, I haven't.

And she goes, yes, you have.

Look, look at your arm.

And so I looked at my arm, I lifted my arm up and the pain was unbelievable when I went to move my arm.

And then it dawned on me that I still actually had an arm.

So yeah, it was like straight away I was elated that yes, something had happened and my arm was still there.

Yeah, I'd actually been at Newcastle the day that happened and I was working not far from Nelson's Bay and heard the helicopter fly over.

It stands out that it's red and yellow and it's obviously a rescue helicopter that we see in our area a lot from car accidents.

And I was listening to the radio and they just announced on the radio that there'd been a shark attack at Jimmy's Beach and the girl was on her way to hospital in, you know, grave condition.

So I guess as a surfer you don't think about shark attacks until it happens to you.

But listening to that one on the radio and watching the helicopter sort of

Made me realise, you know, that there'd obviously been a shark attack and I went, wow, I hope she's all right.

And not knowing that the next week I'll be in the same hospital, just, you know, a floor underneath her, suffering a similar fate.

So, yeah, we met up.

As soon as I was in there, I just, like, out of surgery and started to recover, I sent a message upstairs and said, look, I'd love to have a chat.

And...