A young Cape Town lifeguard had his foot bitten off by a shark during a lifesaving training exercise at Sunrise Beach on Sunday as he battled to fight off what is believed to be a Great White.
Achmat Hassiem, 24, of Strandfontein, was airlifted to hospital on Sunday morning where he underwent emergency surgery. He is in a stable condition.
The beaches in the area were closed after the attack, and a white flag bearing the image of a black shark was draped from the window of False Bay Lifesaving clubhouse, a warning that sharks were present.
While shark specialists appealed for calm on Sunday, asking that the incident be referred to as a "shark encounter", not an attack, his younger brother, Taariq, 17, who was in the water with Achmat, described it as an attack, saying that the shark had returned to ram their boat.
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| 'I saw Achmat trying to wrestle with it' |
His is a tale of two brothers, both trained lifeguards from False Bay Lifesaving and both passionate about the sea, who both took action during the attack to save each other.
Taariq, a matric pupil at Bergvliet High, and Achmat, a correspondence marketing student, were behind the breakers, about 200m offshore from Sunrise Beach, Muizenberg, about 10.45am, when the incident occurred. The water was clear and about 2m to 3m deep.
"We were in the water and meant to be the patients that had to be rescued in the training exercise. Another lifeguard, Nic Pemberton, was meant to be the unconscious patient, I was the patient that couldn't swim and Achmat was the one who was meant to be conscious and could swim," Taariq said.
"So obviously the boat had to go to pick up Nic first. Then, as they were coming for me, Achmat suddenly shouted: 'Taariq! Shark!' I was near the boat and jumped in as fast as I could and then I turned and saw the shark going for my brother. It was big, and I saw Achmat trying to wrestle with it, fighting it, and then he was gone underwater. I thought he was dead.
"I couldn't see him or the shark, but then I saw a dark patch under the water. I didn't know if it was a shark or my brother, but I stuck my arm down in the water.
| 'The shark came back and rammed the boat' |
"I didn't care if the shark bit it because I thought the dark spot might be my brother.
"Then I saw it was him, submerged, and he grabbed my hand and I pulled him up.
"As we pulled him out of the water, I saw there were no bites on his upper body and I thought: 'Thank God.'
"Then he got his left leg into the boat and that was also okay and then when his right leg came out, I saw his foot was gone.
"The shark came back and rammed the boat. I think he was trying to tip it over, but we were enough people to weigh it down and keep it stable.
"We were holding Achmat and he was looking up at me and he said: 'What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong!'
"He didn't want to look. And then I told him: 'The shark's taken your right foot'."
Achmat was rushed to shore in the boat and the paramedics alerted.
They arrived by land, sea and air: ambulances and fire rescue vehicles by land, the NSRI's deep-sea rescue vessel by sea and the Metro Red Cross AMS Helicopter by air.
Before they arrived the False Bay lifeguards gave Achmat first aid treatment by elevating his injured leg and controlling the bleeding.
Paramedic Ian Klopper said once Achmat had been stabilised he was airlifted to the hospital.
The beaches were closed.
"The shark spotters were on duty at the time, but this was much too far away for them to see," Klopper said.
He commended False Bay Lifesaving on their first aid.
"If (Achmat) had been alone out there, he would have been in a lot of trouble," he said.
Achmat's mother, Thoraiya, and father, Moegseen, waited with relatives at the Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic while Achmat was in theatre.
"The surgeon said they have to amputate another bit of his leg so he will be able to wear a prosthesis. It's terrible, but at least he is alive," his father said.
His mother said Achmat had major surgery to his leg two years ago. "He had to have a vascular bypass. He was in a wheelchair for two months and the doctors said he might never walk again. But Achmat wanted to go back to lifesaving and he did. He said he wanted to save people. Now this. It's very sad," she said.
Fellow lifesaver and friend Shirwyn Weber said Achmat had been joking as he was wheeled into hospital.
"I play soccer with him and he said: 'How are we going to play soccer now, hey?' He said he could still feel his toes although he knew his foot was gone," Weber said.
While Taariq waited at the hospital with his parents, the other lifeguards involved in the incident were being given trauma counselling.
Greg Oelofse, of the Shark Working Group, went to the scene with UCT shark researcher Alison Koch.
Oelofse said the shark spotters had four flags: a green flag indicated that visibility was good and no sharks had been seen; a black flag meant no sharks had been seen but visibility was poor; a red flag meant that sharks had been spotted, but could no longer be seen; a white flag with a black shark on it meant sharks were in the water and the beach was closed. When this flag was raised, it was accompanied by a siren to alert bathers and surfers.
Oelofse appealed to the public to swim at Fish Hoek and Muizenberg when shark spotters were on duty. "Most attacks are beyond the breakline. If you are in waist-deep water it is highly unlikely you will be attacked."
Koch said the attack illustrated that sharks did not prey on humans. If it had seen Achmat as prey, it would have eaten him.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on August 14, 2006
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