A 42 year old Still Bay resident, Stuart Anderson, is recovering in a George hospital after being bitten by a shark while surfing at Sill Bay yesterday.
The NSRI says Anderson underwent surgery for his injuries last night.
NSRI spokesperson, Craig Lambinon, said he's in a stable condition.
He said "local surfer Jonathan Gursch, 46, from Newlands, Cape Town, who is now living in Still Bay, described surfing about 20 meters away from Stuart and local surfer Petro van Nierop, 21, when he noticed the two of them begin to head towards rocks, they were about 50 meters off-shore, and he sensed something was not right when he then saw a shark behind them and he then too headed in the direction of the rocks. The shark then disappeared."
"At that stage he did not know that Stuart had been bitten, Stuart and Petro were both just paddling towards the rocks and weren't saying anything, but on reaching them at the rocks he realised that Stuart had bite marks on his right leg and thigh.." Lambinon said.
He added that Gursch "had abandoned his surf board and assisted Stuart out of the water onto the rocks and he was then also helped by NSRI junior volunteer Arno Grewe, 16, who had been preparing to go for a surf and was alerted by other eye-witnesses, and together they got Stuart to the beach where NSRI junior volunteer Leon Combrinck, 17, accessed the shark emergency medical kit and together they bandaged the wounds on Stuarts right leg and thigh while the NSRI Still Bay duty crew were alerted."
Lambinon said all of those involved are friends and he commended them for their efforts.
He said from "descriptions given by the surfer it is suspected that a White shark of about 3 to 3.5 meters was involved in the encounter although that cannot be confirmed until investigated by authorities based on the bite marks."
