Swimmer Attacked in Inland River at Moorebank, New South Wales

This incident is part of a documented multi-victim event on the same river on the same day — a 19-year-old fatally attacked at Milperra, followed by a second attack on a 13-year-old girl at Kentucky further upstream, apparently by the same shark; the case is well-sourced across multiple archival references including Coppleson (1958) and features in the mapped series of Georges River inland-water attacks, making it scientifically and historically significant as a rare inland river, multiple-victim event.

On the afternoon of December 31, 1934, Richard George Soden, a 19-year-old from Canberra visiting his foster parents in Moorebank, entered St. George's River to participate in a swimming race with two companions. The location, approximately 30 kilometers from the river mouth, was a popular bathing area where shoals of fish had been observed that morning. At approximately 4:30 p.m., Soden and his companions—his foster brother Peter Lawrence and Ernest Edwards—began racing across the river, a distance of about 50 yards. Soden quickly assumed the lead, reaching approximately 30 yards across the water when he was seized by a shark. Eyewitness George Markham, a fisherman present at the scene, reported seeing the shark's dorsal fin approach Soden before the animal attacked. The water immediately became discolored with blood as the shark struck, and Soden called out in alarm to his companions. Despite catastrophic injuries to his left leg, Soden managed to swim weakly toward the riverbank. Two fishermen waded into the water and assisted him ashore, with one fisherman noting that Soden "must have lost a tremendous amount of blood" yet demonstrated remarkable will to survive. However, his injuries proved fatal, and Soden died as he was being brought to safety. His body was transported by rowing boat across the river to Liverpool Hospital, where death was formally pronounced. Following the incident, fishermen reported observing a large grey nurse shark, estimated at approximately 12 feet in length, cruising in the shallows along the riverbank. The same or a similar shark attacked another swimmer, 13-year-old Beryl Gladys Morris, several miles upriver at Kentucky later that evening. These incidents occurred during a period when multiple shark attacks were documented in New South Wales inland waterways between late December and early February.