Shark attacks French woman in New Zeeland waters

A french woman has been attacked by a shack while body boarding in  New Zeeland with friends on Thursday.

The 20 year old french tourist was body boarding in the afternoon at Curio Bay in the South Island, when suddenly out of the blue a shark attacked her  by biting her leg leaving a wound,.

She was immediately pulled out of the waters by her friends and some of the locals at the scene who said she sustained moderate injuries.

The woman was airlifted to Dunedin Hospital's emergency department for treatment.

mailonline reported that Nick Smart, who runs the Caitlin Surf School, said the woman was in the water with friends when the shark attacked 'out of nowhere'.

He said the woman's companions dragged her onto the beach and she remained calm as locals took her to a shelter and applied pressure to her wound while awaiting a rescue helicopter.

'She was conscious the whole time but had a pretty good gash on her leg,' he told the Otago Daily Times.

'There wasn't a ton of blood, obviously it wasn't an arterial bleed.'

It was recorded that shark attacks are not common in New Zealand, the last known case being the attack of a 47 year old man attacked at a popular tourist beach in west Auckland,2013 and before then the last time an attack was recorded was in 1976.