Melbourne girl's incredible gesture after sickening shark attack.

Melbourne schoolgirl, 12-year-old Hannah Papps, was on holiday with her dad and sister when she was bitten by a shark in the Whitsundays on Thursday.

The event took place less than 24 hours since a Tasmanian mother was mauled by a shark on the same island.

Despite being terrified, with a huge wound to her leg, the 12-year-old still bravely managed to smile to her rescuers and give them a thumbs up.

A rescue helicopter flew to Cid Harbour in the Whitsunday Islands region around lunchtime on Thursday to retrieve a “another shark bite patient”, the RACQ CQ Rescue service tweeted, after reportedly being bitten on the leg.

On Wednesday evening, Justine Barwick, 46, was mauled while snorkelling nearby, and is lucky to be alive.

Ms Barwick, a mother of two, 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 they’d been undertaking.

The hovering chopper drew the attention of John Hadok, an emergency department 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 Bariwck had “quite a big chunk of leg taken” and had suffered arterial bleeding.

She also suffered puncture wounds to her calf muscle.

As of Saturday, Queensland fisheries authorities have caught and killed two tiger sharks, but it is unclear if they are responsible for the attacks in the Whitsundays.

With AAP.