My best mate was brutally attacked by a great white shark and lived thanks to one lucky detail… now I have a plan to save others

The beach town community of Bonny Hills on the NSW coast was rocked in July 2024 when local surfer Kai McKenzie was bitten by a 15-foot great white shark.

The horrific incident lit a fire under his close friend Danny Schouten, who became determined to do something to help others unlucky enough to find themselves in the same situation… and give them a drastically improved chance of survival.

On July 23, Kai was attacked while surfing at the isolated North Shore Beach near Port Macquarie. 

The young surfer bravely fought off the three-metre shark by kicking it repeatedly before managing to paddle ashore. 

At the precise moment that Kai emerged screaming on the beach, fate was at play – an off-duty police officer had just that moment arrived to take his dog for a walk on the almost empty stretch of sand. 

This combination of luck, timing and a knowledgeable passer-by would eventually be what saved Kai’s life.

‘Kai was saved by a retired police officer who was the only man on the beach that day,’ Danny recounts. 

‘This retired police officer was trained in how to control life-threatening bleeds, and just so happened to get to the beach just as Kai was hitting the shore and ran down to help.’ 

The quick thinking former officer proceeded to fashion the dog leash he was holding into a makeshift tourniquet. This effectively stemmed the bleeding until emergency services arrived.

Kai lost his leg, but his life was saved by the retired officer. Kai previously told Stab magazine: ‘I would 100 per cent not be here if it wasn’t for him. Thank f*** he had a dog lead.’ 

Danny added: ‘The chances of that guy being there at that precise moment were unbelievable – like winning Powerball.’ 

The road to recovery saw Kai spend two months in Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital. 

His severed leg – which had washed up onto the beach – was unfortunately unable to be reattached.

But even after the traumatic shark encounter, Kai remained doggedly determined to once again return to the water once he’d recovered.

‘Looking forward to the day I get back to here, I’m gonna push everything I have to get there, I know it’s gonna be a long journey but it’s going to happen and all your support has fired me up. So let’s get it,’ he wrote in a social media post a couple of months after the incident.

Sure enough, Kai made good on this promise. In October 2024 – just a few months after the attack – he and a close group of friends joined him in returning to the ocean. 

Danny was among the group who were there for Kai’s monumental return.  

But watching what his friend had been through had given Danny pause for thought. 

‘It just made me think, how is it that we don’t have these resources available when so many Australians are in the ocean every day,’ Danny said. 

‘We know there’s a chance this can happen. Why are we not prepared? Why don’t we have life-saving equipment at the beach ready to go?’

Seeing his friend saved by the quick-acting retired officer ‘hit home’ for Danny. 

It also echoed a similar event that had happened only a year earlier in nearby Port Macquarie, when another local surfer Toby Begg was similarly saved after a great white shark bite thanks to a makeshift tourniquet made from surfboard leg ropes.

These incidents inspired Danny to embark on a personal mission to make meaningful change.

Danny’s biggest realisation was how being able to access a tourniquet within seconds is crucial to saving someone’s life after a shark bite.

‘The chances of survival are much greater because you’re prolonging their life until emergency services arrive,’ he explained.

And so the early seeds were sown for what would eventually become the creation of Community SBK shark bite kits.

The high school woodwork teacher started by simply wanting to make a difference in the small town beach community that he’d lived in all his life – and came up with the idea of putting together emergency kits to install at beaches in his area.

Danny, who also has experience as a surf lifeguard, reached out to knowledgeable members of the local lifeguard community for intel on what a kit should ideally contain. From those conversations, he devised a list of essential items.

‘I didn’t want there to be heaps of parts, because that’s going to confuse someone in that situation,’ he explained. 

‘I just wanted it to be really simple, just the things you’d need to stem the bleeding, because that’s the most crucial part after a shark attack.

Each kit has a tourniquet, compression bandages, dressings, an emergency thermal blanket, emergency whistle and gloves. There’s also an easy-to-read instruction card.

‘Kai was fortunate because the person who saved him was trained in trauma wounds,’ Danny said. 

‘The goal with these kits and the instructions is that hopefully anyone can use them to save a life, even if they aren’t trained.’ 

In October 2024 Kai made his return to the ocean – but there was another important event that also happened that day. 

Together, Kai and Danny ceremoniously installed the very first Community SBK at North Shore Beach – the exact site of Kai’s shark attack three months earlier. 

It became the first of several shark bite kits that they personally created, donated and installed in the local area. 

Producing the kits isn’t cheap – so to supplement the process, Danny reached out for donations and created a GoFundMe campaign to help offset some of the costs.

As the kits started popping up around mid north coast beaches, awareness and interest from other beach locations Australia-wide began to grow.

Danny started to receive increasing numbers of requests to purchase the not-for-profit Community SBK shark bite kits – with interest coming from community groups in beachside suburbs, surf clubs, organisations wanting to donate them to their local beach, and private individuals who frequent the beach and wanted one to carry with them.

Up until recently, Danny was a one-man-band personally handmaking and distributing each kit. 

In recent months, he called out for the assistance of local volunteers to help him keep up with demand. Even Kai’s parents volunteered to assist.

Just recently, Danny had even had preliminary discussions with a NSW government department about obtaining 150 kits to roll out at beaches around the state. It’s among several potential bulk orders on the horizon.

The school teacher, who has also just welcomed his first baby, admitted with a laugh that he’s unsure how he can possibly keep up with growing demand, but knows the purpose behind them is important enough that he’ll find a way to ensure anyone who wants a kit can access one. 

‘Doing the kits takes up most of my spare time now. But it’s all for a good cause,’ Danny said.

‘Ultimately, I really do pray these kits never need to be used. But if they are needed, I hope it makes the difference that saves somebody’s life.’

For now, he continues to rely on donation support via GoFundMe so he can keep producing the non-profit kits without passing unnecessary costs on to those who want to buy them.

And if you’re wondering where to locate a Community SBK at your local beach, Danny has always insisted that every single one of them is located as near as possible to the shore in a highly visible and accessible spot.

According to the Australian Shark Incident Database, maintained by Taronga Conservation Society Australia, over the last 10 years there have been, on average, 20 shark incidents each year where people are injured, with an average of 2.8 fatalities annually.

Although it may feel like there are an increasing number of shark bite reports in Australia in recent years, Rob Harcourt, emeritus professor of marine ecology at Macquarie University, told The Guardian that fatalities from shark bites today are  likely to be the same or lower per capita than they were a hundred years ago. 

The reason? Largely due to faster emergency responses, tourniquet kits at every surf lifesaving club and first aid training.

As a lifelong surfer, Danny understands as well as anyone that being in the ocean always comes with a risk of shark attacks.

‘It’s part of Australian culture to swim at the beach, and many of us are never going to stop doing that, regardless of the risks.’ 

‘I often have people comment to me online, “If you don’t want to get bit, stay out of the water”. But let’s say one of your close friends lost his leg in a car accident. Would that stop you from driving again?

‘So many things we do in our lives come with risks every day – but that doesn’t mean we don’t do them.’

‘No one goes into the water wanting to get eaten. Just like no one hops in their car wanting to crash. 

‘The only thing you can do, in my opinion, is have respect for sharks in the ocean and be prepared to act if it does happen,’ he continued.

‘In a car, you put your seat belt on. In the ocean, you can prepare by having your own personal shark bite kit on your towel, or have one installed for the community at the local beach.’