A video of a Cronulla real estate agent picking up a one metre long shark in the Oak Park rock pool and throwing it back into the ocean has gone viral.
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The video of Melissa Hatheier was posted on the Cronulla Real Estate Facebook page on Tuesday.
“Our in house Shark Wrangler Melissa Hatheier wrestling a shark out of Oak Park Rock Pool yesterday morning! Nice work Mel!”, the post read.
Ms Hatheier told the Leader she was surprised by the attention.
“I was just trying to catch a little shark,” she said.
“If it had big teeth I wouldn’t have done it.”
Ms Hatheier said she wasn’t sure whether the shark was a Port Jackson or Wobbegong.
“My mum, who swims at Oak Park every morning, called me just after 7am on Monday and said, ‘There’s a shark in the rock pool’,” Ms Hatheier said.
“I rounded up the kids and we headed to the pool.
“The water was very clear and it was easy to see the shark swimming around.
“He was only about a metre long.
“I started to swim around him and he became a bit stressed and started to knock his head on the rocks.
“I was feeling sorry for him.
“Everyone was saying, ‘What do we do?
“Mum even rang 000 and the police came.
“I herded the shark into the shallows and then I just sort of jumped on him and put my knees on his fins.
“I then grabbed him around the neck so he couldn’t swing around and bite me.
“He wasn't that heavy but his skin was very rough, like sandpaper.
“I just threw him over the edge of the pool into the water and watched him swim away.”
Ms Hatheier’s daughter Shannon, 19, a law student at University of Sydney, videoed the encounter from the side of the pool while her sister Lani, a Year 8 student at OLMC Burraneer watched on.
Ms Hathier said her son Nathan, 20, was at the pool, too, but had to leave to attend TAFE while her husband Peter was on his way to work and “missed all the action”.