A Navy diver who lost a hand and a leg in a Sydney Harbour shark attack is back diving and walking, and says he wants to return to work at the scene of the attack.
Doctors said navy clearance diver Paul de Gelder was lucky to survive the mauling by a 2.7-metre bull shark off Garden Island Naval Base on February 11.
After seven weeks in hospital, Mr de Gelder has told 60 Minutes he is determined to put the experience behind him.
He is already walking with a prosthetic leg, driving high performance cars and confronting his fears head-on by swimming with sharks at an Manly’s Oceanarium.
The extremely fit 31-year-old appeared comfortable examining graphic medical photographs of his injuries taken just before doctors decided to amputate his leg and hand.
Asked whether he planned on being a Navy clearance diver again, he said: “I do, I’ve never stopped”.
After five years as a clearance diver and working on peacekeeping mission in East Timor, he said his goal was to get back to working exactly where he was before the incident.
“That will be something that I’ll have to do,” he told the Nine Network.
“It’s going to be a tough bridge to vivid savagcross, but you can’t show weakness.”
Mr de Gelder gave an account of the e 6.30am (AEDT) attack while visiting the scene north of the Garden Island docks.
“It’s all a little bit nerve-wracking really,” he said.
“I kind-of wish I didn’t come out that day but you can’t change the past. You have to look to the future.”
He said that during equipment testing sharks were “everywhere” off Garden Island and the thought of the predators circling came into his mind “every time”.
“You just put it to the back of your mind and try not to worry about it.
“You have an obligation, a role and a job that you have to get on with so you don’t let the things that scare you stop you from doing that.”
He said sharks were in his mind on the morning the attack.
“Then it was in my leg,” he joked.
“I remember it all.”
Mr de Gelder was on the surface when the shark began mauling his leg and hand.
“I was swimming on my back. I had my fins on and a wetsuit on, and I was just checking my direction and when I got halfway back from turning around I got hit in the leg and looked down and there was a big toothy grin.
“(It was) grey, white, toothy and beady.
“I’d never seen a shark up close before. To see it like that was not something you expect.
“You look down and there’s a big monster attached to you and your mind goes into panic mode.”
At one point, the shark’s head was just 50cm away from Mr de Gelder’s face.
“We were pretty much staring eye to eye for about three or four seconds.”
In one bite it took his “whole hand and the whole of the back of my leg”.
“It just felt like getting hit in the leg with a plank of wood, you don’t feel the teeth go in or anything.
“I think the adrenalin, the panic, probably puts a numb on the pain and you don’t feel it.”
Four navy colleagues dragged him onto a boat and got him to shore before he was rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital in a critical condition.
“I thought he was dead,” Navy colleague Lane Patterson said.
Doctors said he most probably would have died in the water if the main artery in his leg had been severed.
He is now living with his girlfriend in an apartment paid for by the Navy and is being helped by his life-long friend Brock who quit his job to care for him.
But he is still getting used to the new hi-tech leg and will soon have a bionic hand fitted.
I get out of bed and it’s a bit of a struggle,” he said.
“It takes all your strength to sort of roll yourself out and get going in the mornings, physically.
“Mentally, I just want to bound out of bed, go and have breakfast and run down to the water and go for a swim but … baby steps.”
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Ramsay fires back at Grimshaw
Posted in Local News, tagged "sexist, A Current Affair, abusing, aimed, allegations, allegedly, angry reaction, appearance, arrogant, at the food show, attack, audience, Australia, avalanche, bitter, blown out of proportion, branding, Britain, bully, calling, celebrity chef, chefs, comments, compared, confine, congratulating, deeply mortified, denied, disgusting, extra-marital affair, Fairfax Radio Network, fired, fray, gay., generated, global, Good Food and Wine Show, Gordon, Gordon Ramsay., Grimshaw, guilty, Health Minister, himself, homophobic remarks"., insinuations, intended, joke, Julia Gillard, kevin rudd, kitchen, lawyers, lesbian, Local News, long-running, Melbourne's, Melbourne's Yarra River, members, Mr Rudd's deputy, Ms Gillard, narcissist, New Zealand, Nicola Roxon, nine network, offensive, outburst, overwhelmed, photo, pig, Prime Minister, private life, program, prop., public, public rant, Ramsay, rant, ratings, reflected, remorse, report, reporters, sad, scrutinised, second, sex god, sexuality, stop, support, Tana, The Mail Online, The Mirror, tongue-in-cheek, too far, Tracy Grimshaw, TV chef, TV presenter, uninformed, US, US celebrity watcher Perez Hilton, veteran, viewers, volley, weekend, wife, women, women's groups. on June 9, 2009| 1 Comment »
Days after a public rant aimed at Tracy Grimshaw, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has fired a second volley branding the TV presenter “sad”
and “bitter” for defending herself.
Ramsay denied calling the Nine Network veteran a lesbian at a weekend appearance at Melbourne’s Good Food and Wine Show during which he also allegedly compared her to a pig, using an offensive photo as a prop.
Ramsay on Tuesday said he was “deeply mortified” that his intended joke had been blown out of proportion – and that was before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the chef’s comments reflected a “new form of low life”.
Mr Rudd’s deputy Julia Gillard and Health Minister Nicola Roxon joined the fray, saying Ramsay should confine himself to the kitchen and stop abusing women.
But there was no remorse from the TV chef after Grimshaw used her A Current Affair program on Monday to take him to task over his food show rant.
Ramsay on Tuesday said he’d never used the word “lesbian” to describe Grimshaw, and said she herself was guilty of a “disgusting” attack on his wife Tana, who’s due in Australia in two weeks.
“She’s obviously doing it for the ratings,” he said of Grimshaw, speaking to reporters after a run along Melbourne’s Yarra River.
On Monday, Grimshaw branded Ramsay a bully and an “arrogant narcissist”. She said he’d made “uninformed insinuations” at the food show about her sexuality, and she told her viewers she was not gay.
Grimshaw said that before a recent interview for her program, Ramsay had insisted she refrain from asking about his private life following allegations of a long-running extra-marital affair.
“We all know why,” she said.
She added: “… I’m not surprised by any of this. We’ve all seen how Gordon Ramsay treats his wife – and he supposedly loves her. We’re all just fodder to him.”
Asked if he could understand how Grimshaw felt, Ramsay told reporters: “I never once said the word lesbian, I was having a tongue-in-cheek joke – it was not at her expense.
“For me on a personal front, to see how sad and how bitter for someone to come out like that, for a renowned pro to come out and stoop that low, is disgusting.”
He said tapes of the alleged incident were being scrutinised by his lawyers.
Mr Rudd was firmly in Grimshaw’s corner on Tuesday, congratulating her for giving Ramsay a “left uppercut” in her reply.
“I think I can describe his remarks as reflecting a new form of low life,” he told the Fairfax Radio Network.
“I just drew breath when I saw the sort of stuff which was said about her. I just think that’s off and offensive.”
Earlier, Ms Gillard said the celebrity chef should stay in the kitchen.
“I think perhaps what he should do is confine himself to the kitchen and make nice things for people to eat rather than make public comments about others,” she said.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said there was no need for “women to be abused in our community at any level”.
Grimshaw said she had been overwhelmed by the avalanche of support she’d received.
The fallout from Ramsay’s rant has gone global, spreading to his homeland Britain and to the US and New Zealand.
Britain’s The Mirror sent up Ramsay in a report headlined: “Good thing Gordon Ramsay is such a sex god.”
“Gordon is such a handsome devil, a veritable sex god come to Earth to live among men, you can understand why he might feel that mere mortals are unworthy of his presence,” the report said.
The Mail Online carried a report about the outburst and the angry reaction it had generated among audience members and women’s groups.
US celebrity watcher Perez Hilton said Ramsay had gone too far with his “sexist, homophobic remarks”.
Source www.ninemsn.com.au
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