Family reels from shark attack
2009-08-31 07:52
George - A family from Mossel Bay lost a second son to the sea at the weekend, following a fatal shark attack.
Gerhard van Zyl, 25, is the first shark attack victim in the Southern Cape in 20 years. He died on Saturday afternoon due to shock and blood loss, after a shark had ripped off his right leg, just above the knee.
His youngest brother Christo, 17, died three years ago after falling from a cliff into the ocean on the St Blaize hiking trail outside Mossel Bay. Christo's girlfriend Riana Müller, 16, died a year after his death due to a painkiller overdose.
"Gerhard and a friend had been surfing just after 15:00 at Outeniqua beach, near the well-known Glentana beach, when the shark attacked," Dawie Zwiegelaar, head of the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) station at Mossel Bay, told Die Burger on Sunday.
According to Zwiegelaar, Van Zyl was helped back to the beach by his friend, where a paramedic from Netcare 911 tried to save his life.
Family too shocked to talk about incident
"The wetsuit was wrapped around the wound and tied with a piece of rope in an attempt to stop the bleeding. The paramedic then performed heart massage."
Van Zyl was taken to a hospital in George with the Red Cross's AMS helicopter, where he later died.
NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon said Van Zyl's parents, Chris and Anna-Marie van Zyl from Bayview, Mossel Bay, had been in Cape Town when the shark attack happened. They returned to Mossel Bay immediately, but their oldest son had already died by the time they reached the hospital.
The couple now have one surviving son, Johan, 23.
On Sunday they were still too shocked to talk about the incident.
"It's tragic that the same family has to lose another son in such an unnatural way," said Faffa Coetzee, former teacher and cricket coach at Point High School. Gerhard, who matriculated in 2002, achieved an A aggregate in matric. He was also captain of the school's cricket team and played cricket for SWD's under 17 team.
Shark behavioural patterns
According to Stephan Swanson, researcher at Oceans Research, an independent research institute in Mossel Bay, shark researchers have tagged approximately 400 great white sharks in the bay over the past three years, in order to determine their behavioural patterns.
About 98% of these sharks are between 2m and 3m in length. The smaller sharks in particular are nomadic and migrate to Gansbaai and False Bay, returning to Mossel Bay in August and September.
Their daily swimming route stretches from Mossel Bay to Hartenbos, Klein Brak River, Groot Brak River and Glentana.
"Sharks are opportunistic hunters and scavengers who investigate anything that might be edible. To determine whether an object is edible, they first smell and 'taste' it," he said.