Exclusive: shark attack victim speaks
By Shaun Fewings
National Nine News
Eric Nerhus' account of his extraordinary brush with death is chilling.
The 41-year-old abalone diver said the 3m creature came from nowhere in the cold murky water and in a flash, its jaws had engulfed his head and shoulders.
"Half my body was in its mouth," he told National Nine News.
"I felt down to the eye socket with my two fingers and poked them into the sockets," he said.
"The shark reacted by opening its mouth and I just tried to wriggle out."
With his wife and children by his hospital bed, Nerhus recalled how the great white's bite crushed his reinforced goggles, breaking his nose.
He said if it was not for his lead-weight vest, he would have been eaten alive.
"It was still trying to bite me. It crushed my goggles into my nose and they fell into its mouth. "
Mr Nerhus worked an arm free and used his abalone chisel to stab at the shark's head. Freed from its mouth, he desperately made for the surface and the safety of his boat.
"He is one lucky boy," abalone diver Graeme Adams said. "There are not too many people who go head first into a white pointer down to their chest and get spat back out again."
Mr Nerhus is expected to remain in hospital for a few more days.
The emergency surgeons have stitched up his injured arm, which was ripped open, the muscles exposed, during the shark attack.
"Mate, there's no point him buying any lottery tickets, I think he's used up all his luck," a friend of the Nerhus family said.
Mr Nerhus says he was probably attacked by a juvenile white pointer which mistook him for a seal. Shark experts agree.
"With a black wetsuit and black flippers on, you will look a bit like a sick, sad, sorry seal and definitely worth investigating [to a shark]," Sydney Aquarium's Grant Willis said.
Colder water temperatures may have attracted the great white closer to the coast.
"It's well known, scientifically, that great whites like the cool weather," aerial shark spotter Harry Mitchell said.
The frightening ordeal has not put off other abalone divers. They returned to the seas off Eden today, declaring shark attacks to be one of the pitfalls of the job.
A great white shark.

 diver Eric Nerhus is recovering in hospital after being attacked by a 10-foot-long  while scuba diving off , south of Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday. 

Forty one year-old Nerhus said he was diving near the shore in murky waters, when the shark grabbed him by the head, crushing his diving mask. Nerhus fought back, poking the shark's eye socket with his fingers. The shark released him but came back again, grabbing Nerhus by his upper body, leaving deep lacerations on his torso. Nerhus managed to free one arm and stabbed the shark with a chisel. When the shark released him again, he made for the surface, where he was pulled out of the water by his 25-year-old son and was rushed to hospital. 

He is being treated for serious injuries to his head, body and left arm and is expected to remain in hospital for a few more days. He was able to recount his experience to reporters. 

Nerhus believes that the shark may have mistaken his black wetsuit and flipper clad figure for a seal, prompting the attack. Grant Willis, a shark expert at  agreed with the assessment, speaking to CNN. 

An average of about 15 shark attacks occur in Australia every year, of which one is fatal. This is one of the highest shark attack rates in the world.