Great white shark stranded in shallow water in Australia rescued by locals — with an assist from an 11-year-old boy

Tourist Nash Core admits he felt some fear when he and his 11-year-old son waded into the ocean off the Australian coast to help rescue a 10-foot great white shark stranded in shallow water.

Three local men managed to return the distressed animal from a sand bank into deeper water after an almost hour-long rescue effort on Tuesday near the coastal town of Ardrossan in South Australia state. 

“It was either sick or … just tired,” said Core, who was visiting with his family from Gold Coast in Queensland state. “We definitely got it into some deeper water, so hopefully it’s swimming still.”

Core came across the unusual human-shark interaction while traveling around Australia with his wife Ash Core and their sons Parker, 11, and Lennox, 7.

Nash Core used his drone to shoot video of the writhing shark before he and Parker decided to help the trio who were struggling to move the shark into deeper water.

“To be honest, I did have some thoughts about, oh, why am I going out here?” Core recalled on Thursday.

“As we were going out, my young son, Parker, turned to me and said … ‘My heart’s pounding.’ I said, ‘Yeah, mine’s beating pretty fast too,'” Core added.

The three men had used crab rakes – a garden rake-like tool for digging small crabs from sand – to move the shark into deeper water by the time the father and son arrived.

Core said he decided against pushing the shark himself.

“They … got it into deeper water where I thought it’s probably not a good idea to go any further. That’s its territory and I’ll stay back,” he said.

Core said the rescuers later told him they’d never seen a beached shark before.

Macquarie University wildlife scientist Vanessa Pirotta said while shark strandings were not common, they were becoming more visible through social media.

There could be a number of reasons why marine animals like sharks might strand, including illness and injury. The shark could also have chased prey into the shallows, Pirotta said.

“If you see something like this, human safety comes first and foremost,” Pirotta said. “You can contact environmental authorities … who will get someone appropriate to come and assist.”

Shark attacks in Australia are rare, with 255 fatal bites recorded since 1791 in the country of 27 million people, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database. 

However, a surfer was killed by a shark in southwestern Australia just last month. Another surfer was presumed dead after a shark attack in South Australia in early January.

In 2023, there was a disproportionate number of attacks in Australia, according to a database of global shark attacks run by the University of Florida.  However, last year, Australia reported nine unprovoked bites, a sizable decrease from the country’s five-year average of 15.