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'Absolute hero' husband punches shark clamped onto wife's leg

A woman who was left in a life or death battle with a huge shark has praised her quick thinking husband for punching it in the face.

Frankie Gonsalves, 40, thought her days were numbered when a near three-metre shark clamped onto her leg while swimming off Ascension Island.

Her terrified husband, Dean, saw the ordeal unfold and without hesitation jumped into action, unleashing a fury of punches directly on the shark’s nose.

The couple’s young children Katie and Louis watched on as their parents desperately battled the beast amid the increasingly bloody water.

Frankie Gonsalves thought her days were numbered when a near three-metre shark clamped onto her leg while swimming off Ascension Island.
Frankie Gonsalves thought her days were numbered when a near three-metre shark clamped onto her leg while swimming off Ascension Island.

"I was attacked by a shark. The b*****d chomped on my foot and calf. Dean Gonsalves beat it up good and proper and sent it on its way,” the injured mother wrote on Facebook.

“What an absolute hero. Kids traumatised by seeing the whole thing unfold in front of them.”

As Frankie recovers from a severed Achillies tendon, her father Benjamin said if it wasn’t for Dean, two children would be growing up without a mother.

“We are just glad that she’s alive and was not taken by the shark. When I was told I thought the worst. It is scary to think how close I was to losing a child," he added.