Surfer steps on shark

A 20-year-old competition surfer says he accidentally stepped on a shark's head before it bit him off the Australian east coast.

Ryan Hunt was recovering in a hospital on Thursday and awaiting surgery to deep cuts and puncture wounds to his left foot and ankle after he was mauled on Wednesday evening while surfing at Wallabi Point, which is 250 kilometers (160 miles) north of Sydney.

Hunt told Nine Network television in a telephone interview from his hospital bed that he had jumped off his board in waist-deep water when he was bitten.

Hunt says the shark bit him twice and he kicked it off with his right foot both times.

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