Honeymoon widow describes shark victim’s dying screams

Gemma Redmond, 27, said she first thought her husband, Ian, was sneezing as he was snorkelling in the Indian Ocean archipelago.

But Mrs Redmond said she soon realised the 30-year-old was in terrible trouble.

She said: “All of a sudden, I heard this ‘Help’ and I thought at first he was sneezing. And then I heard it again – I heard ‘Help’ and the most awful scream. I can still hear it when I close my eyes.”

She said she cradled him in his final moments and told him: “You’re going to be all right.”

She said he was still conscious when he was brought ashore in a boat, and looked at her with a “mixture of fear and relief” when he saw her.

The couple, from Lancashire, had been married less than a fortnight before the tragedy.

Mr Redmond was savaged by the shark off Anse Lazio beach on Praslin, the second largest island in the Seychelles.

He was brought ashore in a dinghy with appalling injuries to a leg and holes in his chest and stomach.

Mrs Redmond said she had run across the beach to the boat in which her husband was brought ashore after the attack on Tuesday.

“The man who had pulled the speedboat in wouldn’t let me go to it, and I screamed at him ‘it’s my husband’. He looked me in the eyes and said: ‘Go on then.’

“I could see Ian was laid back in the boat, his arms out, and he was conscious. He looked up at me and I looked at him and I could see a mixture in his eyes of fear and of a realisation, a relief, that he had seen me, that I was there.

“I reached down my hand and I held his face, I grabbed hold of his face and got his hand and held it to my chest and said to him: ‘You’re going to be all right. We’re going to look after you, we’re going to sort you out’.

“I think I told him I loved him very much – I hope I did – and then a man dragged me away.

“They were very kind, the men, they picked me up, I don’t remember my legs touching the floor, they dragged me away, I was very, very distressed. They took him out of the boat and brought him somewhere higher up on the beach.”

Mrs Redmond revealed that her husband, who was in the water for about 20 minutes before he was attacked, had earlier laughed off the dangers of sharks and she said they had gone to the Seychelles partly because they thought the islands were free from dangerous animals.

Mrs Redmond said she had asked a receptionist if there were sharks and was told: “No, not in the Seychelles, the Seychelles are very safe waters.”

She said: “We didn’t really think that sharks would be in the Seychelles at all.”

Government officials have issued a ban on swimming until the killer is captured.

Earlier this month, a 36-year-old French tourist was killed by a shark in the same area.

Mr and Mrs Redmond’s parents are thought to have flown out to the Seychelles. Mr Redmond’s body is due to be flown back to Wigan, Lancashire, today with his funeral expected to be held at the same church where the couple married.