Man killed in shark attack at Gold Coast tourist beach

A 46-year-old surfer has been killed in a shark attack on the Gold Coast.

He was pulled from the surf at the popular Greenmount Beach at Coolangatta around 5.15pm on Tuesday with serious leg injuries.

The man was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene, a Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman said.

The man had been surfing out the front of the local lifesaving club at the time of the attack.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Greenmount Beach has shark control equipment, including shark nets and drumlines.

“The equipment lowers risk, but does not provide an impenetrable barrier between sharks and humans,” the department’s website says.

‘I started screaming to my son to get out of the water’

Heroic surfers rushed to the man's aid and dragged him out of the water, 9News reported.

One man told the news outlet he was filming his 13-year-old son in the water when he heard people yelling, 'shark! shark!'.

"I looked around and thought maybe it's a dolphin. I looked again at my son and with my camera, I zoomed in next to him to his left and I saw a board and the guy was laying down in the water," Leo Cabral said.

"The first thing that came to my mind was that I just wanted my son and his friends to be out of the water ... I couldn't feel my body at all, I was completely frozen, I was blank.

"I started screaming to my son to get out of the water."

He said bystanders on the beach were in disbelief at the scenes unfolding before them.

"It was so sad, it was really sad," he said.

Local surfers at the scene and online were shocked by the fatality.

"Nowhere is safe," responded one surfer on surfing website Swellnet.

"Greenmount always felt okay, but reality hits home - nowhere in the ocean is without risk."

It is the first fatal shark attack on a Gold Coast beach since 1958.

with AAP

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