Speaking from his hospital bed in Lismore after 80 stitches to repair "a hole as big as a fist", the keen surfer said: "It mustn't have liked the taste because he let me go."
After smacking the water several times with his hand to scare the shark "so it wouldn't come back and have a second go", Mr Butler paddled 35metres towards the shore before a "beautiful wave" carried him on to the beach.His first thought was not to allow any sand to enter the wound. Using what little strength and first-aid knowledge he had, Mr Butler used his leg rope as a makeshift tourniquet. Noticing a "chunk of his leg hanging down", he held the loose muscle in place and walked 500metres along the beach and into the village before finding help. "I looked and saw how bad it was and I thought `I'm going to die here on the beach, I'm not going to make it'. Anger and partly my children kept me going," he said.
"I'm glad to be alive. It terrified me, but I will surf again if I can." Mr Butler does not believe that the shark should be killed. "It's in its domain, doing what it does naturally," he said. But he warned other surfers away from Brooms Head, saying the water contains "a huge number of sharks". To thank his rescuers, Mr Butler agreed to talk to television reporters only if the stations donated a "considerable amount of money" to the Lismore-based Life Saver Rescue Helicopter service. "It's a pittance for them, the television stations, and I have a lot to thank the helicopter service for," he said. The ordeal has not deterred Mr Butler's family from surfing. His eldest daughter, Emma, 17, will compete today in the Pro-Junior surfing series at Avoca.