Archive for the 'South Africa' Category
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Simon Bruce, 20, was bitten on the foot by a shark at Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday morning. He sustained five bites in his left foot, three of which are “quite big and deep” and required stitches.
Bruce was walking out into the sea at about 8:30. He was no more than chest deep when he felt a bump on his foot. He didn’t feel the bite at all.
Then he felt something rub against the top of his legs and assumed right away it was a shark.
He said he didn’t see the shark at all and immediately headed back to the beach. While he was wading back to shore his foot started to “feel funny” and he realised he had been bitten.
Two friends on the beach wrapped his badly bleeding foot in a towel and took him to a hospital where he received a tetanus shot, the bite wounds were disinfected and stitched, and his foot was bandaged.
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Thursday, December 31st, 2009
[By Olivia 'OJ' Symcox] The family and girlfriend of shark attack victim Peter James Fraser have set the record straight regarding the facts about the shark attack which occurred in Ponta do Oura last week on Tuesday 22 December. Contrary to reports circulating in the media, Fraser did not lose any limbs, although he did sustain 6 injuries of varying severity from his encounter with the 6 ft shark, which has been tentatively identified as a juvenile Tiger shark.
Fraser, 27, and his girlfriend Nicolene Latsky, were holidaying in the Mozambiquan tourist hotspot of Ponta Do Oura. At approximately 4:30pm on the day of the attack, Fraser was swimming in the bay and caught a wave to shore. As he was exiting the water, he felt something bump his leg. Thinking it was his girlfriend, he thought nothing of it. However, the shark came back at him, biting him on the right knee causing him to fall to his knees in the less than 2 ft of water.
The shark came at him again from his right hand side, biting him beneath the right shoulder and again on his back on the right hand side. The worst of his injuries were sustained when he fought the shark off with both his hands. The shark bit down on his hands, resulting in deep cuts across all of his knuckles on his left hand, almost severing through three tendons on the top of his fingers. His right hand sustained less severe lacerations. Peter then exited the water unassisted, where he was treated by a paramedic who was on holiday at the same location.
Continue reading ‘Shark Attack Victim’s Family Sets The Record Straight’
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
According to TimesLive, a South African teenager has lost a leg and an arm in a shark attack in Ponte de Orca Bay in Mozambique. According to the news report, the teenage boy was airlifted to a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal after the attack on Tuesday afternoon.
Ponte de Orca is a popular beach holiday and diving destination just north of the South African border.
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UPDATE: According to Zigzag, the victim did not lose an arm or leg but was flown by private helicopter to hospital in Richards Bay shortly after the incident.
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Durban Surfer Lance Morris was attacked by either a small shark or some other form of predator fish like a Barracuda or Morey eel at North Beach on Friday. Whatever it was, he needed 10 stitches to repair the damage. By the size of the bite marks on his leg, the doctor who stitched him up estimated the attacker to be about 4 – 5ft in length. See more pics here!
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[photo: Karl Liebenberg]
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
Beachgoers watched in horror yesterday as a lifeguard was pulled off his board by a shark and mauled to death at Port St Johns’ Second Beach.
Witnesses said they saw his hands in the air for a short while before his whole body disappeared under the water and a red pool of blood was seen on the surface.
The 22-year-old’s remains have yet to be found. The victim’s name has been withheld until officials inform his family.
He’s the fourth person to die from a shark attack at the same beach in two years.
UPDATE: Tshintshekile Nduva, 22, of Noqekwana village in Port St Johns was the victim of the fatal attack. Second Beach remained closed for the weekend after the attack.
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Sunday, August 30th, 2009
The surfer who was killed yesterday in a shark attack at Glentana Bay in the Southern Cape was Gerhard van Zyl, 25, a Mossel Bay local. He was surfing with a friend at the small seaside village when the shark attacked.
National Sea Rescue Institute spokesperson Craig Lambinon said they were called out around 3.30pm, soon after the attack. Van Zyl’s lower right leg had been bitten almost completely off. When authorities arrived, a friend had pulled him out of the water, and had helped to tie a tourniquet around his injured leg.
Lambinon said NSRI volunteers, ER24 paramedic services, Netcare 911, the police, Metro ambulance and rescue services and a Red Cross AMS helicopter had been called to the beach.
“We found him on the beach and treated him for amputation to his right leg,” said Lambinon. “He was airlifted to a hospital in George and when he got there, was declared to be in a critical condition. He was later declared dead.”
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Saturday, August 29th, 2009
A 25-year-old man died after being attacked by a shark while surfing at Glentana Bay on Saturday.
The man had been surfing with a friend at the bay between Glentana and Outeniqua, near Mossel Bay when the attack happened just after 3:30 on Saturday.
His friend brought him to shore.
When emergency personnel arrived at the scene, they found the man had already had his right leg amputated below the knee from the shark bite.
Paramedics and other emergency workers carried out resuscitation efforts and the man was then taken to the George provincial hospital where he died. The family has been informed and are in close contact with the authorities.
It is not yet known what species of shark was involved in the incident.
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Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
A great white shark may have been responsible for knocking a bodyboarder off his board just off Alkantstrand beach in South Africa on Tuesday.
Jeandre Nagel felt an extremely hard knock and was thrown off his board while paddling back towards the shore around lunchtime. He grabbed the leash, got back onto the board and paddled as fast as he could until he reached the beach. Jeandre’s board had a row of deep tooth marks on the underside.
The board was handed over to the Sharks Board Offices in Richards Bay on Friday morning, from where it will be sent to Durban for examination to determine the species and size of the shark involved.
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Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Turns out Wednesday’s shark attack victim, Paul Buckley, needed 150 stitches to close up the 15″ gash left by the shark. Buckley was surfing at Jongensfontein, South Africa when a 12 ft great white sunk its teeth into his leg. Ouch.
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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
Surfer Paul Buckley was attacked by a shark yesterday while riding the waves in Jongensfontein. South Africa. He was rushed to a hospital where his leg was stitched up.
The attack happened at 11:15 am off a beach frequented by surfers. He said until they examined the board for bite marks, they could not say what type of shark attacked Buckley or how big it was but something put a 10″ hole in the board.
A local witnessed the attack from the patio of his parents house and said he saw two surfers in the water and one starting thrashing around. Realizing there was a problem. he ran to the beach while his sister brought the car around.
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