Friends have described the frantic final moments of a young surfer who was attacked by two enormous sharks off the coast of Gracetown, Australia right before their eyes.

The witnesses say that 29-year-old Brad Smith was surfing off Left Handers Beach, around 150 miles south of Perth, when a massive great white shark “as wide as a shark” ambushed him, biting his surfboard in half in 2012.

His friends watched in horror as Smith fell into the waters, thrashing around in a mixture of water and blood.

He desperately tried to fight back, pushing the creature away and striking it in the nose with his fists.

But soon his friends noticed a second shark approaching. After approximately 45 seconds of fighting, they say Smith was dragged beneath the surface as the water turned a deep red, reports the Mirror.

Then, Smith’s lifeless body floated to the surface, “bitten in half”.

His friends courageously braved the shark-infested waters to retrieve what was left of Smith, warning other surfers, “Don’t go in there, someone’s been bitten.”

Cameron Rowe, 17, said: “There was nothing we could do to help him. At first I saw one shark and thought it was one of the usual ones you see swimming-around, reef sharks, which don’t cause you any trouble.

“But these things were massive. When the first one came up a bit I could see its fin and it was almost a yard high.

“When it came out of the water with Brad still fighting it, I could see its body was about the width of a car and its open jaws were as wide as a man’s arm.

“What happened then just ended up in a terrible feeding frenzy. It was awful.”

Experts reckon he had been attacked by great white sharks, which are larger, faster and more aggressive than other species.

Although shark attacks are uncommon, an estimated four people are killed by the creatures in Australia annually.

Following Smith’s death, marksmen took to the waters on a fleet of boats, aided by police helicopters, attempting to locate and cull the maneaters.

Tony Cappelluti, an officer from the fisheries authority stated: “If we find them, we have the authority to kill them. Great whites are a protected species, unless one kills a human.

“If they’ve tasted human blood, then they’ll remain a problem until we’ve tracked them down.”

Smith’s close mate Rod Draper said he was a hugely popular figure in the local surf scene. “He absolutely loved life,” he said.

“There isn’t a person who could say a bad word about him.”

Despite calls from some surfers for sharks to be killed, Smith’s family reportedly asked authorities not to kill the animal, stating they did not blame it for what occurred.