He returned to Italy and is now hospitalized at the Rizzoli hospital in Bologna, where he will be able to continue his treatment. Matteo Mariotti, twenty years old from Parma, on December 9 he was attacked by a shark on the leg (which was amputated below the knee), and faced a 30-hour journey to get home. He will probably now have to undergo a new operation, but he appears calm. «I want to say it openly, you are the heroes, because I alone would not have accomplished anything, I would be flat like a flat tire”, he wrote in his stories on Instagram. «You have been there day after day sending me wonderful messages to lift my spirits. I returned to Italy today, I'm being admitted to hospital and I will have to have another operation in the next few days. It hurts a lot but I'm fineI have the smile you made me have printed on my face from morning to night despite the pain.”
Matteo Mariotti was in Australia as of November 17, 2022: he wanted to learn English well and enroll in university to become a marine biologist. Last summer he returned to Parma, then left for Australia in September and, to renew his residence permit, started working on an agricultural company. In December he had decided to take a holiday and, together with his friend Tommaso, he wanted to visit the white beaches of Australia and get to the Gold Coast, where he planned to find a new job and get a house.
On the day of the attack, Matteo was on Beach 1770, a well-known location in Queensland, and was preparing for a dive. «He didn't see the dog shark coming, perhaps a tiger shark or a bull shark, frequent in that area, which attacked him from behind three times», said his father Michele. «In a few seconds the predator «had already dragged him into high water to devour him as they do with prey. I know this because I have dived in various parts of the world and found myself among sharks. Matteo was strong, cold and courageous: with his hands he opened the shark's mouth to remove the leg».
Matteo reported: «I was screaming with the fear that the shark could reach me and eat me. I was screaming for help from my friend Tommaso (nurse and diving instructor, ed.), who was on the beach: he was the one who saved me. Tommaso picked me up and while calling for help he held my injured leg to stop the bleeding. Until the helicopter arrived: running, Tommaso carried me on his shoulder to the stretcher. And the helicopter took me away immediately: to the hospital in Brisbane, where I ended up directly in the operating room for an initial operation on my leg.”
On Instagram, he retraced the terrible moments of the attack: «As I swam towards the shore, inside me I was already ready to die. There were only three thoughts in my head: “he's going to come back”, “I have to get out of the water” and the most painful, “I'll never see anyone again, I'll never go home again”. In that moment I wasn't scared of death at all, I was sure it would come, what scared me and made me suffer the most was precisely the fact that I would never be able to see my friends and family again. Right there I realized that all I needed were those people».
Source: Vanity Fair
I’m Susan Karen, a professional writer and editor at World Stock Market. I specialize in Entertainment news, writing stories that keep readers informed on all the latest developments in the industry. With over five years of experience in creating engaging content and copywriting for various media outlets, I have grown to become an invaluable asset to any team.
