Shark attacks French diplomat
Monday 3:09PM
A FRENCH diplomat working in Papua New Guinea has been flown to Australia after a shark attacked him when he was kite-surfing off Port Moresby.

Thomas Viot, 30, was bitten by what he believed was a two-metre tiger shark at a reef off the PNG capital yesterday afternoon.

“I managed to ride back with my kite-surf, it was bleeding very badly and I don't know how but I managed to ride back,” Mr Viot said from hospital in Port Moresby ahead of being evacuated to Brisbane.

“I lost a lot of blood and the leg needs to have surgery.”

The economist, who works for the European Union in PNG, has been in the country for two-and-a-half years and said there were always “plenty” of sharks at the reef, but he did not see the creature before it struck.

He vowed to return to kite-surfing once he had recovered.

“It's not my first surfing accident… I got attacked by a stingray at the beginning of the year, and I always go back,” he said. “By a shark, this was the first (attack) and I hope the last.”

Obviously tiger sharks like the frogs legs for a treat now and then.

(Glad the onion sucker is ok tho )

Just realised this is the same bloke that copped a sting ray barb a while ago.. what has he been doing to pizz of sea creatures so much!?

Bloody unlucky.

tomstheword said...




“I managed to ride back with my kite-surf,”

With his kite-surf? is this the language barrier or a inexperienced rider?

Hi,

we just got word back from the locals and they are 99% sure it was a barracuda attack not a SHARK.
The guy is an experienced kiter.

We all hope he gets well and this was his last encounter with any vicious fish.

I think a tiger shark would do more damage then that.....

wow, crazy how fishing stories go. add in PNG and the media "spin" and thats what you get i suppose

I saw thomas in hospital last night, no doubt it is a pretty ugly wound. He was lucky to get back to shore by himself and very fortunate he had help on hand to get him back to the city.

The attack happened at 5pm on a very overcast rainy day, sharky conditions for sure.

2m tiger?? the photo speaks for itself really.

I kited out to the reef with thomas when I was in png...it's a long tack out there ...that would have been a hard ride back in with that wound for sure...hope you heal quick

Gristly......

the day before is the best photo hope he get well fast and buy a lotto ticket cause all your bad luck seems to be on the water .

stabber said...

Oooohh...lah...lah!

she touched my ding ding dong...... ooooohhhh, my trah lah lah.

In your dreams ....

getfunky said...


EDIT: Note to guy in 3rd pic - far left. You are doing it wrong.. you need a harness, bar, water.. you are just doing it wrong!

Probably already got a bar in his hand

At least that Tigress Shark, or whatever they call them over there, looks sorry for what she's done

Oceanic white tips are bass ass...Got chased out of the water at Cloudbreak on an eight foot day, a very hair raising experience. The fin was as big as the gunwhale on the boat, probably about a 12 footer. Once safe in the boat we followed it right into the lineup to see if it would go away, it just hung around. Killed a great session....
Good thing that came out of it was we noticed a pod of sperm whale out to sea and headed out to take photos. As we got closer the Fijian boat driver started to get spooked and insisted we turn around. I managed to snap a couple of lame shots but was happy to see them. We turned and headed back to Tavarua, and after about 300 meters we turned back around to look at the whales again and up from behind the pod a blue whale breached out of the water. It dwarfed everything we had ever seen in our lives, made us feel so insignificant and small. The sperm whales looked like guppies compared the that creature. Twenty years on now my friend and I still think about that moment and how insane it was to witness that.
I guess I can thank that big ass shark for such a great experience....