The marine biology student told Italian newspaper Gazetta di Parma that he went to the beach to clear his head after learning his grandfather had died.
I needed to relax and I thought about taking a swim not far from the shore, but after a few steps in the water, I felt a terrible pain in a foot.
The shark soon had his whole leg in its mouth and began to pull him away from the shore as he struggled to free himself, eventually managing to widen the animal’s mouth enough to get loose “even though from the knee down I could tell there was nothing left”.
His friend Tommaso Agosti came to his rescue and helped pull him from the water, now rapidly turning red as the stricken student began to bleed out.
Agosti tried to keep his friend calm as he attempted to staunch the bleeding.He then lifted his mate on to his shoulder and took him ashore, where a helicopter then airlifted him to hospital in Brisbane.