A 12-year-old holidaying with her family has been attacked by a shark at the same north Queensland site where a Tasmanian tourist was bitten on Wednesday.

September 20, 2018

A young girl has been attacked by a shark at the same Queensland island where a Tasmanian mother was mauled less than 24 hours earlier. 

The 12-year-old was rescued by helicopter from Cid Harbour in the Whitsunday Islands on Thursday afternoon after being bitten on the upper leg.

The girl, who was holidaying with her father and sister, was flown to the Mackay Base Hospital in a critical condition and will have surgery.

Queensland Ambulance Service operations manager Tracey Eastwick said the girl had lost a significant amount of blood after she was mauled on the thigh.

“It is horrific … for us as a community of paramedics it is quite confronting to have two similar incidents in the space of less than 24 hours,” she told reporters in Mackay.

“In north Queensland, shark attacks are not that common.”

The last attack in the area was eight years ago.

The Queensland government will set three drum lines in the Cid Harbour area tomorrow, in a bid to prevent any further attacks.

Fisheries officers and water police are also patrolling the area, while swimmers are being told to stay out of the water at the popular holiday hotspot.

On Wednesday evening, Justine Barwick, 46, was also mauled off the same island, while snorkelling, and is lucky to be alive. 

Ms Barwick, a mother of two, is in a critical condition in Mackay Base Hospital where she remains on Thursday after overnight surgery.

She would likely have bled to death from a severe wound to her left thigh without the quick-thinking actions of people in nearby boats.

A rescue helicopter scrambled to the region was just 15 minutes away from the scene due to an earlier operation.

The hovering chopper drew the attention of John Hadok, an emergency doctor from Mackay Base Hospital, who was sailing nearby and soon joined the effort to save Ms Barwick’s life.

Dr Hadok’s direction ensured correct first aid was given to Ms Barwick, allowing her to be safely winched into the helicopter.

RACQ CQ Rescue Helicopter crewman Ben McCauley said the doctor and others who gave first aid to Ms Barwick before she was winched aboard had likely saved her life.

“The original first aid was actually really well done,” Mr McCauley told reporters on Thursday.

“We actually didn’t have to do anything with the leg, it was pretty much tourniqueted up, bandaged up and bleeding had stopped. They’d done a really good job.”

Although he didn’t see the wound, Mr McCauley was told Ms Barwick had “quite a big chunk of leg taken” and had suffered arterial bleeding.

She also suffered puncture wounds to her calf muscle.

The helicopter then stopped at Proserpine to refuel, allowing blood from a local hospital to be transfused and other medical treatment given.