Pretoria- Prominent Pretoria advocate Ben Swart has nine lives – he lost five fingers while climbing Mount Everest and narrowly escaped death when a great white shark attacked him at Plettenberg Bay on Monday.
The 55-year-old legal eagle handles a lot of high-profile financial cases as a senior council. But in his private life he is an adrenalin junkie who climbs mountains, surfs and cycles, among others forms of extreme sports.
This week, he was on holiday with friends at Plett when a shark attacked. “It was such a beautiful morning and we wanted to catch the first breeze,” he told the Pretoria News.
At 6.30am Swart and his friends set off from Central Beach to Keurbooms. An hour later all hell broke loose.
The three men were about 400m off-shore and well behind the back-line when, without warning, Swart felt a hard bump from underneath his surf-ski.
“The next thing I knew I was in the air, and landed in the water,” he said. He laughed as he spoke about the incident on Tuesday, saying the “near-death experience” had not scared him.
Although it sent Swart flying in the air, the shark only got a fair-sized bite out of his surf-ski, and thus he was able to swim back in. It was believed to be a 4m great white. “I lay down on the surf-ski while my two friends on their surf-skis alongside my damaged one began gently paddling me towards the shore.”
The trio called for help and raised the alarm.
Swart said he had been hardened through a life in the outdoors and adventure, which had seen him successfully completing several challenges, including summitting the highest mountain peaks on each continent.
He said he took his first climb in 2004.
His first was Europe’s highest peak on Mount Elbrus and the next was Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America in 2007.
North America’s Denali followed in 2008, and then both Antarctica’s Vinson Massif and the Carstensz Pyramid in Papua, Indonesia, in 2009.
All his adventures had led him eventually to try out the grandfather of summits – Asia’s Mount Everest in 2010.
Disaster struck during that climb when he developed cerebral oedema. This left him disorientation to such an extent that he got frostbite on the descent – the result of which were the amputation of five fingers, two on his right hand and three on the left.
“When things like this happen to you, all you’re left with is to adapt and get used to it. That’s why my amputation never disadvantaged me in any way,” Swart said.
Refusing to back down from the life that defined him, he went on to climb the 8 200m Cho Oyu in the Himalayas in 2012 and more recently the Ojos del Salados in the Atacama desert in Chile on December 6. “I plan to do the Genghis Khan route in Mongolia next July,” he said. “I love being outside.”
He said that climbing mountains enabled him to have a different view of his life in general. “It gives me an appreciation for the small things we usually take for granted, like good health and friendship. It makes me realise that life is short and precious.”
He said he planned to return to his Waterkloof home with his family on January 8.
Safety Tips
*Use beaches where shark spotters are on duty.
*Do not swim, surf or surf-ski when birds, dolphins or seals are feeding nearby, or where trek-netting, fishing or spear fishing is taking place.
*Do not swim in deep water beyond the breakers.
*Do not swim if you are bleeding.
*Do not swim, surf or surf-ski at night.
*Do not swim, surf or surf-ski if there has been a whale stranding nearby.
*Obey beach officials, lifeguards and shark spotters if told to leave the water.
*Be aware that the rate of encounters with great white sharks rises significantly when the water temperature is warmer (18ºC or higher) and during a new moon, due to increased opportunities for feeding.
*For those kayaking or surf-skiing far out to the sea, consider paddling in groups and staying close together (in a diamond formation).