Injured Queensland nurse swims through shark-infested waters for help
Hurt woman wades in shark-infested waters
After falling about three metres on a remote Torres Strait island, Bernadette Marley quickly realised she had two choices.
The badly-injured woman could either wait through the night for someone to come looking or she could take her chances in the island's shark-infested waters.
Ms Marley, a nurse aged in her 50s, tried to climb down a cliff to go snorkelling on Murray Island at the weekend.
She lost her footing halfway down and landed on sand on the side of the island, which she knew had no signal.
"The pain was absolutely excruciating," she told ABC radio on Friday.
"I just figured the water would be more buoyant."
With a fractured pelvis, back and leg, Ms Marley waded in chest-high waters for an estimated two hours.
She says jumping sardines made her worry she was being followed by sharks and prompted her to pull herself onto a rock.
But the pain outside of the water was too much and she was forced to push on.
"A couple of times there I got pretty low and I thought, `nah, I can't do this'," she said.
"(Then) I thought ... if I want to stay alive, I've got to keep going."
After exerting a lot of her energy singing out for help, Ms Marley was finally spotted and flown via helicopter to the mainland.
She has since been discharged from Innisfail Hospital.
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