Great white shark jumps into boat, fisherman lives to tell the tale

Selwood used a hand-held radio to call the coast guard and stayed on the upper edge of the boat until a rescue boat arrived. The shark was estimated to weigh 200 kilograms.

An elderly Australian fisherman has lived to tell the tale after a great white shark leapt into his boat, with the 73-year-old surviving with only an injured arm after he was sent flying by the thrashing beast.

Fisherman Terry Selwood he was left with a badly bruised and bleeding right arm where the airborne shark struck him with a fin. (AP)

Terry Selwood was enjoying some quiet time on the water off Evans Head in northern New South Wales state when he was given the fright of his life.

“I caught a blur of something coming over the boat ... and the pectoral fin of the shark hit me on the forearm and spun me round, knocked me down on the ground to my hands and knees,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“He came right over the top of the motor and then dropped onto the floor.”

The shark was 2.7 metres in length and with the boat 1.4 metres across and 4.5 metres long, it was a tight squeeze

The great white shark which leapt into the boat of fisherman Terry Selwood.

“There I was on all fours and he’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and then he started to do the dance around and shake and I couldn’t get out quick enough onto the gunwale,” Selwood said, referring to the upper edge of the boat.

He managed to grab his radio and called local marine rescue volunteers, who plucked him from the boat and took him ashore where he was treated for skin torn off his arm.

They returned to retrieve his boat and the body of the unwanted passenger, which a local department of primary industries official said was a great white.

Selwood said he had been fishing for close to 60 years, but had never had been through anything like that.