By ANNA USHER

Shark bite trauma kits could be installed at Balmoral and Mosman’s other harbour beaches, under a push going to Tuesday night’s council meeting after a summer in which a 12-year-old boy died from a shark bite in Sydney Harbour.

Councillor Carolyn Corrigan wants Council to investigate installing the kits at Mosman’s swimming beaches and report back by the next meeting.

Her reasoning is blunt. “Our busy and popular harbour beaches are not patrolled, so any additional first aid assistance readily available and accessible could be lifesaving,” her motion states.

The kits are already going up along the coast. Surf Life Saving NSW announced in April that publicly accessible Shark Bite Trauma Kits will be fixed to the outside wall of all 129 NSW surf clubs, ready for any bystander to grab if a lifesaver is not on duty.

But Mosman’s harbour beaches have no surf clubs. That leaves Balmoral, Edwards Beach, Chinamans Beach and Clifton Gardens outside the rollout, even though they draw thousands of swimmers every summer.

Balmoral and Clifton Gardens have netted swimming enclosures. Plenty of swimmers, paddleboarders and kids jumping off the wharf spend their time outside them.

The risk is no longer theoretical. In January, 12-year-old Nico Antic was bitten on both legs by a suspected bull shark while jumping off rocks near Shark Beach at Nielsen Park, a netted harbour beach at Vaucluse on the other side of the harbour. He died in hospital almost a week later.

Like Balmoral, Shark Beach has a netted swimming enclosure. Nico was outside it.

The water beyond the heads has been deadlier still. In September, 57-year-old father and experienced surfer Mercury Psillakis was killed by a shark about 100 metres offshore at Long Reef, near Dee Why, on the northern beaches.

And in the same 26 hours Nico was attacked, an 11-year-old boy escaped unhurt at Dee Why after a shark bit his surfboard, and a surfer was critically injured at Manly’s North Steyne that evening, revived on the sand by the people around him. Three Sydney attacks in barely a day.

Then came Coogee. On Saturday, 13 June, Leah Stewart, 34, was bitten by a suspected great white while swimming between the flags at a patrolled beach in the middle of the day. A lifeguard helped save her. Her arm was later amputated.

Mosman has carried this fear before. On 17 January 1955, 13-year-old John Willis of Burran Avenue went down to Balmoral for an afternoon swim and was mauled to death by a bronze whaler about 10 metres from the shore, as Mosman Collective has previously reported.

He remains the only person on record killed by a shark at Balmoral.

“Volunteer surf lifesavers are in most instances the first emergency service responding to shark bite incidents,” Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce said when the coastal rollout was announced.

Just last week the NSW Government tipped another $34 million into shark-spotting drones. From 1 July, drones patrol about 70 beaches statewide from dawn to dusk, all year, with Sydney’s ocean beaches jumping from 26 to 38, from Palm Beach to Cronulla.

But the drones fly over surf beaches, not the harbour. Sydney Harbour is getting two listening stations instead, and one is earmarked for Balmoral, as Mosman Collective revealed in March.

The device will ping the SharkSmart app when a tagged shark comes within 500 metres. It cannot help a swimmer who has already been bitten. No drone patrols Balmoral, no surf club sits on the sand, and there is no trauma kit on the wall.

Councillors vote on the motion on Tuesday night. If it passes, staff will report back to the August meeting on where the kits could go.