MELBOURNE, Australia — Tourist Nash Core admits he felt a twinge of fear as he and his 11-year-old son stepped into the ocean off the South Australian coast to help rescue a 10-foot great white shark stuck in shallow water.
The dramatic scene unfolded near the coastal town of Ardrossan, where three local men were already working to free the distressed shark from a sand bank. After nearly an hour of effort, the group managed to guide the animal back into deeper water.
“It was either sick or just tired,” said Core, who was visiting from Queensland’s Gold Coast with his wife, Ash, and their two sons, Parker, 11, and Lennox, 7. “We definitely got it into some deeper water, so hopefully it’s swimming still.”
Core captured footage of the struggling shark with his drone before he and Parker joined the locals in the rescue effort. The rare encounter unfolded during the family’s road trip around Australia.
“To be honest, I did have some thoughts about, ‘Oh, why am I going out here?’” tourist Nash Core recalled on Thursday, reflecting on his decision to join a rescue effort for a great white shark stranded off the South Australian coast.
As Core and his 11-year-old son, Parker, entered the water, the intensity of the moment was clear. “My young son turned to me and said, ‘My heart’s pounding,’” Core said. “I said, ‘Yeah, mine’s beating pretty fast too.’”
By the time the pair arrived, three local men were already at work using crab rakes—tools normally used to dig small crabs from the sand—to maneuver the distressed shark off the sand bank and into deeper water.
Core chose not to get too close. “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 explained.
The locals later told Core they had never encountered a beached shark before.
Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist at Macquarie University, said that while shark strandings are uncommon, they are becoming more visible due to social media. She noted that sharks can strand for a variety of reasons, including illness, injury, or chasing prey into shallow waters.
“If you see something like this, human safety comes first and foremost,” Pirotta emphasized. “You can contact environmental authorities who can send trained personnel to assist.”
