Interview with hero dad who saved son from Australia shark attack

May 7 2009 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Former Huddersfield man rescues son from shark in Australia

WHEN Charles Lindop left Huddersfield for Australia, it was for a life of sun, sea and sand.

The last thing he expected was that one day he would be called on to rescue one of his family from the jaws of a great white shark.

But that’s what happened after son Andrew Lindop suffered a horrific leg injury when he was bitten by one of the beasts.

Mr Lindop, who grew up at Imperial Road in Edgerton and went to King James’s School in Almondbury, was surfing with his son when the incident happened.

Now he has spoken of the moment he saw the two-metre-long predator sink its teeth into the 15-year-old’s leg.

He said: “It was incomprehensible. My brain couldn’t process the images my eyes were seeing. It was almost like having an out-of-body experience.

“Andrew was screaming: ‘Dad, I’ve been bitten by a shark. I can’t feel my leg. Is it still there?’

“I was reassuring Andrew and telling him everything would be all right, got him to shore and tried to treat him until the ambulances got there. It was like being an actor in a film.”

Mr Lindop, who moved to Sydney in 1986 after falling in love with the country on holiday, now works as a consultant for technology businesses.

He had gone with his surf-mad son to Avalon beach north of Sydney for an early morning surf on March 1.

Andrew was later due to work a shift patrolling Palm Beach, better known as Summer Bay from TV soap Home and Away.