A teenager has died after being attacked by a shark on Australia’s east coast, just one week after a surfer was fatally mauled in Western Australia.

New South Wales police were called to a popular surf beach near Coffs Harbour, about 280 miles north of Sydney, after reports of the attack.

“A man, believed to be aged 18, was bodyboarding with friends around 100 metres offshore when he was bitten on the legs by what is believed to be a shark,” police said in a statement.

“His friends managed to get him to the beach where he was treated by paramedics. He was pronounced dead a short time later.”

An ambulance spokeswoman said the victim had severe leg injuries, but he is understood to have died from a traumatic cardiac arrest following the attack.

Police said the boy had been sitting upright on his boogie board off the secluded Riecks Point when he was bitten on both legs.

“A struggle has taken place and he has managed to break free,” Coffs Harbour police inspector Joanne Reid

“It has taken a bit of time to get him to shore and he lost a fair amount of blood on the way.”

She commended his friends for going to his aid and bringing him to shore.

“It’s just a tragic, tragic incident,” she said.

Locals said the sharks were rarely seen in the area and incident had shocked the community.

The death comes a week after a 35-year-old surfer was killed by a shark near Gracetown, about 160 miles south of the Western Australian capital of Perth.

Sharks are common in Australian waters, but deadly attacks are rare, with only one of the average 15 incidents a year typically proving fatal.

Until last week there had not been a fatality since July 2012 when a surfer was bitten in half off the coast of Western Australia, capping an unprecedented spate of five deadly attacks by the marine predators that sparked calls in that state for a cull.