By Jorge Branco
A shark-bite victim was in knee-high water off Heron Island when a reef shark attacked him on Tuesday afternoon.
Gladstone Queensland Ambulance Service advanced care paramedic Brad Lawson said the boy was in good spirits after he was bitten by a blacktip reef shark.
He said the boy's father took him to the island's medical centre, where a registered nurse treated him.
"She basically cleaned the wound, dressed it and prepared him for transport," he said.
An 11-year-old boy has been bitten by a reef shark off Heron Island.
The nurse and the child's father flew with him on a private sea plane from the island to Gladstone Airport where paramedics were waiting to take the boy to hospital.
"The child's in quite good spirits, quite happy, quite jovial and in minimal pain at the point in time," Mr Lawson said.
He clarified the child was bitten on the right leg, not the left, as originally reported by QAS.
University of Queensland Centre for Marine Science director Ian Tibbetts, who often visited the school's Heron Island facility, said shark bites at the island were "really, really rare".
"It's a very rare event," Dr Tibbetts said.
"There are a reasonable number of sharks up there but they always stay away from humans."
The Tuesday afternoon bite was the second shark attack in central Queensland this week, after a spearfisher fought off a shark near Miall Island, off the coast of Yeppoon.
EARLIER
An 11-year-old boy has been airlifted to the mainland after a shark attack off a Great Barrier Reef island, paramedics say.
A Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman said the boy was flown by seaplane from Heron Island, where he was swimming when he was bitten, to Gladstone.
He said an emergency call came in about 2.30pm and paramedics were on standby at Gladstone Airport about 4.40pm waiting to take the boy to hospital.
The boy suffered a "significant bite" to his lower left calf, the spokesman said, and a registered nurse on the island treated him before he was airlifted out.
Just before 5pm, the QAS reported the boy was being taken to Gladstone Hospital.
Heron Island Resort staff refused to comment.
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