A woman has been hospitalised with “serious” bite wounds to her leg after being attacked by a shark while swimming in Sydney Harbour. 

The victim, identified as 29-year-old kayaker Lauren O’Neill, was swimming near a private wharf at Elizabeth Bay around 7.45pm (8.45am GMT) on Monday, less than 2 km (1.2 miles) from Sydney’s iconic Opera House, when she was bitten by the suspected bull shark.

New South Wales Police in a statement said she suffered a “serious injury to her right leg”. 

Shark attacks in Sydney Harbour are rare, but the area is known to be an important habitat for bull sharks and their young.

Neighbours rushed to help the victim, with one resident telling the Sydney Morning Herald he heard a “soft yell” for help from his window. 

“She was trying to climb in and behind her was her leg, which was completely open and full of dark red blood behind her,” Michael Porter told the paper.

“It was surreal. We have always been worried and known about sharks in the harbour ... it’s only now that it feels very real.”

A witness said Ms O’Neill dragged herself to safety onto a nearby wharf. A vet living nearby then applied tourniquets and bandages to stem the bleeding of her wound until paramedics arrived.

“She swam out to the boat and on her way back she got bitten by, I think it was, a bull shark,” another witness told local news outlet OnScene Bondi.

“We ran out. My wife’s a vet and she basically bandaged it up.”

Ms O’Neill remains in a stable condition in intensive care at St Vincent’s Hospital, where she is expected to undergo surgery.

It was Sydney’s first shark attack in the harbour since 2009, when an Australian navy diver was mauled by a bull shark during a training exercise in Woolloomooloo Bay.

In February 2022, 35-year-old British diving instructor Simon Nellist was killed by a 3m (9ft 10in) great white shark at Little Bay, which was Sydney’s first fatal shark attack since 1963.