Man recounts Moz shark attack
2009-12-29 09:51
Johannesburg - The South African man who survived a shark attack in southern Mozambique last week says it will be a long time before he dares to go back into the sea.
Peter Fraser, 27, of Rustenburg, was speaking on his arrival at OR Tambo International Airport on Monday after he was discharged from a hospital in Richards Bay.
He said he survived the attack by a Zambezi shark, in calm water at Ponta d’Ouro, by hitting the creature with a flipper.
“I don’t think I am unlucky that I was attacked so much as lucky to have survived,” he said.
Wounds
He did not (as reported by Sapa on Sunday) lose any limbs in the attack, but doctors had to close a wound more than 20cm long on his back. The shark also bit a chunk of flesh from his right shoulder, and bit his right upper and forearm, his chest and his right hand.
“During the attack I felt nothing. It wasn’t sore. Only when I got out of the water and saw the blood did I realise how serious it was,” he said.
The attack lasted only seconds. “I first felt the thing bump my legs, but I couldn’t see anything in the dark water. Only later, when I hit its head away, I realised it was a shark.”
He estimated the shark was about two metres long.
“One always hears what you should do during an attack, but in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t really think of anything. I just wanted to get away.”
'We were in their world'
Fraser said he doesn’t think the attack could have been prevented. “We weren’t in deep; the water was about shoulder height. It was just a case of, we were in their [the sharks’] world, not them in ours.”
Fraser’s girlfriend, Nicolene Latsky, 27, who witnessed the attack, said he had lost a lot of blood by the time he got out of the water.
Her father, Kobus Latsky, loaded Fraser on his bakkie and raced him to a first-aid post. From there, Fraser was airlifted by helicopter to Manguzi at Kosi Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
“They couldn’t treat him there, so he was flown to Empangeni hospital, where they operated for four-and-a-half hours to close the wounds,” she said.
The next day, Fraser was transferred to a hospital in Richards Bay to recover.