Shark attack Star of Courage humbling for WA woman

It was calm and still the day an Albany woman driven by instinct swam out to save the life of a fellow surf club member who had been attacked by a shark off Western Australia’s south coast.

Joanne Lucas’ bravery in doing so has earned her the Star of Courage, a bravery award which will presented by the Governor-General Quentin Bryce.

The 54-year-old mother of three had arrived at Middleton Beach, Albany, early on May 10 last year, ahead of a surf club event.

“It was very still and calm, and the sun was shining, and there were dolphins flipping about, a whole pod of dolphins …” Ms Lucas said.

But a short time later, a woman ran up the beach telling her a man had been attacked by a shark.

“I said: `No, no, it’s the dolphins’ and she said: `No it’s a shark’,” Ms Lucas said.

Ms Lucas said running down to the beach, driven by instinct and adrenalin, she stripped off her tracksuit pants and swam 80 metres to where fellow surf club member Jason Cull was critically injured, barely able to swim or tread water.

“It was a completely instinctive thing. I didn’t think: `There’s a shark out there maybe I shouldn’t go out there’,” she said.

“I just thought I’ve got to get this guy out and I’ve got to get him back in.”

All the while, the shark manoeuvred around the scene, with Ms Lucas fearing the frantic splashing of two nearby swimmers trying to scare it away would steer the shark toward her and Mr Cull.

She said she kicked harder and made it to shore where Mr Cull was treated for his injuries.

His leg was completely ripped open from his ankle right up to his knee and he had been “nipped” on the other knee, Ms Lucas said.    

Ms Lucas said she was happy to see Mr Cull now back on his feet and cycling around the place.

Being awarded the star of courage was humbling, she said.

“I’m very honoured and humbled to receive this.”

Ms Lucas said she was quickly back on the beach after the attack.

“It hasn’t turned me off the ocean at all,” she said.

“I actually scan the ocean before I go in now …”

The governor-general is expected to present the star of courage to Ms Lucas at a ceremony early next year.

Source www.watoday.com.au

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Qantas jet hit by lightning… again

Qantas Airbus operating the QF72 Singapore to Perth flight was struck by lightning soon after departure from Changi Airport, the airline confirmed.

A spokesman for the airline said the incident had not presented any safety issue to the aircraft or passengers.               

The plane landed safely in Perth at its scheduled arrival time of 2.20pm, where it will now be inspected.

“The A330-300 aircraft will be inspected by engineers after landing,” the spokesman said.

“It is too soon to say if any maintenance will be required.”

To allow the necessary checks to be undertaken, the return QF71 flight to Singapore will be delayed by about two-and-a-half hours.

It will now depart Perth at 6pm.

Qantas said passengers booked on QF71 would be provided with refreshment vouchers.

“We will be keeping them informed of developments in the lead up to the departure,” the spokesman said.

Source  :  www.watoday.com.au

Read Full Post »

CommBank cops sustained online fraud attack

Commonwealth Bank customers are being inundated with phishing attacks, some at a rate of several scam emails a day, sent by cyber criminals seeking to steal passwords and credit card details.

The scammers, who are specifically targeting the bank in a sustained assault, are bombarding customers with several clever variations of the email ruse – such as using bogus call centres – in an attempt to hook even tech-savvy web users.

The emails have largely managed to evade spam filters using methods such as images instead of text.

Commonwealth Bank spokesman Steve Batten admitted the bank was losing the war with the fraudsters, despite working closely with the Australian Federal Police’s Australian High Tech Crime Centre.

“As soon as we close them down they are opening up elsewhere,” Batten said.

This is backed up by figures from the Australian Payments Clearing Association, which reported a 33 per cent increase in both the volume and value of fraudulent online payments in Australia for the year ended December 31, 2008.

The scam emails, which look authentic and include the Commonwealth Bank’s logo, try to trick the victim into handing over sensitive information by telling them they need to unlock an account, activate a card, claim a fee refund, update internet banking details, view an important security message or complete a survey in exchange for payment.

When the victim clicks on the link in the email, they are either infected with a password-stealing virus or presented with an official-looking page that asks them to enter their details, which are then harvested by the fraudsters.

Batten said some of the emails purport to come from actual Commonwealth Bank staff members. He stressed that the bank would never ask customers to submit sensitive information over email.

But in a new variation on the traditional “phishing” attack, which usually asks victims to click on a malicious link, one Commonwealth Bank scam email asks customers to call a Queensland phone number in order to redeem a $500 “cashback bonus”.

IT contractor Tom Howard, from the Central Coast, received the email and attempted to call the number just as an experiment.

“It’s an automated system with an American accent that welcomes you to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and then requests an account number or says something’s expired and asks for your credit card number,” he said.

The voice recording then requested Howard’s expiry date and pin number, but he just entered in random digits.

“It actually told me the information was incorrect, which suggests that it’s hooked up to a payment gateway and it’s actually trying to do an authorisation on the credit card right then and there,” he said.

Howard said he was alarmed at the sophistication of the scam and believed the bogus call centre idea would trick a lot of people.

“People have been conditioned in terms of these phishing emails to ‘don’t click on the links’, but not so much to ‘don’t call the number’,” he said.

Source: smh.com.au 

Read Full Post »

WA Perth University Student wins $13 Million on the Oz Lotto with Old Ticket

A PERTH university student is more than $13 million richer after she presented her winning ticket this week, ten months after her numbers came up.

The Perth Student received the ticket as a gift from her father, purchased  from Beechboro Newsagency in a $50 million OZ Lotto jackpot draw on July 22, 2008.

The winning ticket was a Systems 8 Slikpik costing $8.70.

At first glance, the woman thought she had won just over $13,000 but was later informed that it was actually $13,185,273.                  

“I checked the commas and decimal places and then realised,” she said.

The prize remained unclaimed for 10 months.

The woman said she only decided to check a bundle of tickets because she was worried about her family’s finances.

She was unaware of the 12-month expiry on Lotto tickets in WA.

“Something made me think to check the tickets and I thought that if I win something, then I could help Mum and Dad out,” she said.

“I always remember Mum telling me that if I won Lotto, not to start jumping up and down in the shopping centre.”

She is yet to decide what to do with the unexpected windfall.

“The people close to me will be looked after and I might give some to research or a charity of some kind. It’s nice to have this much to fulfil my dreams and the dreams of the people around me,” she said.

Read Full Post »