Crowdy Bay shark attack: woman killed on NSW beach and man taken to hospital in critical condition

A woman has died after a shark attack on the New South Wales mid-north coast at Kylies beach.

The woman and a man, both aged in their 20s, were swimming together at the beach at Crowdy Bay on Thursday morning when they were bitten, police said.

Witnesses assisted the pair and emergency services were called to the beach at about 6.30am, NSW police Chief Insp Timothy Bayly said.

The woman died at the scene. The man suffered serious injuries but a bystander applied a makeshift tourniquet to his leg before paramedics and the Westpac rescue helicopter arrived, NSW Ambulance Supt Joshua Smyth said.

“[That] potentially saved his life,” Smyth said on Thursday.

“The courage from some bystanders is amazing. To put yourself out there is very heroic and it did give us time to get to that male patient.”

He was airlifted to John Hunter hospital in a critical condition. He subsequently improved to be in a serious but stable condition.

Police were liaising with experts from the Department of Primary Industries to determine the species of shark involved and a report was to be prepared for the coroner.

A department spokesperson said it was deploying five “smart” drumlines at Kylies beach, which Bayly said could help catch the shark involved.

The “shark management alert in real time” drumlines used in NSW are a non-lethal tagging method that lures sharks using baited hooks.

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Surf Life Saving NSW said Kylies and nearby beaches would be closed for at least 24 hours. Drones were surveilling the area for activity and dangers in the water.

The remote stretch of coastline was unpatrolled, with the nearest surf club at Crowdy Head to the south, the organisation said.

“This is a terrible tragedy and our deepest condolences go to the families of the woman and man involved,” the Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive, Steve Pearce, said on Thursday.

“For now, please remain clear of the water at beaches in the vicinity.”

The woman’s death comes less than three months after Mercury Psillakis was killed by a 3.5-metre great white shark at Long Reef beach in Sydney in early September.

This year, there have been five shark bite fatalities in Australia.

In 2024, there were 13 unprovoked bites resulting in no fatalities – 10 fewer unprovoked bites than in 2023, when there were four fatalities. In 2020, there were seven unprovoked fatal attacks.

Shark bites have become more common across Australia in the last two decades, Prof Charlie Huveneers, the director of Flinders University’s Marine and Coastal Research Consortium, told Guardian Australia after Psillakis’s death.

Coastal population growth, climate breakdown, habitat depletion, uptake of water sports, weather anomalies, distribution of prey and even better wetsuits – keeping us in the water for longer and over cooler months – are among 40 factors that, depending on the location, are likely to have contributed to the rise, Huveneers said in September.

Fatalities are a different story. Rob Harcourt, emeritus professor of marine ecology at Macquarie University, has said the number of deaths from shark bites today is likely to be the same or lower than in the 1930s, per capita, because of faster emergency responses, tourniquet kits at every surf life saving club and first aid training.