Elderly woman killed by shark in South Africa

By JO-ANNE SMETHERHAM

CAPE TOWN - The close-knit Fish Hoek community was in shock after popular local resident, Tyna webb, 77, was killed by a shark while on her daily swim off Jager's Walk on Monday (SA time).

It was the first fatal shark attack in the area in over a century.

Webb was one of a group of stalwarts who swam early every morning at Fish Hoek all year round. She was a strong swimmer and would disregard the warnings of family and friends and swim hundreds of metres out to sea.

The attack happened at 7am yesterday about 150 metres from the shore. After the attack a small crowd, several eyewitnesses among them who said the shark was about six metres long, gazed out to sea in shock.

Many in the crowd knew Webb and several had swum with her in the mornings.

Fellow swimmer Carla Reiman said: "I had just arrived on the beach and saw the trek fishermen waving a flag and shouting from the watchpoint on the mountain. From the beach, I saw the fin, then the whole shark, coming out of the water. It thrashed around. Everybody was screaming and shouting."

"We are a group who swim here every morning. I don't know that I want to be doing this any longer. We're dumbstruck."

Brian de Jager, who works at Sunny Cove Manor, would greet Webb every morning as he strolled along Jager's Walk on his way to buy the newspaper.

"This morning I took my usual walk and I saw Tyna swimming. The next minute, I saw this fin coming through the water, and then the discolouration in the water. It was so quick - it was only around 30 seconds then it was all finished."

"She was such a lovely lady, with an amazing carriage and grace - such a beautiful person."

Fisherman Jeffrey Andries saw the attack through binoculars from the fishermen's lookout on Elsies Peak. He waved a flag to alert the beachgoers - as he had done when he spotted sharks the previous day.

"It was about seven in the morning. I saw the lady doing backstroke. She was swimming directly into the path of the shark. Then I saw splashes. The shark turned, then pulled her down under the water."

Other eyewitnesses said they had seen the shark thrash around then come out of the water and down on a swimmer, before pulling the body under.

A red bathing cap believed to have belonged to Webb was found soon after the attack. A sea fisheries vessel, two lifesaving boats and a helicopter combed the sea for a body and police divers searched under-water all morning. The search was called off at lunchtime.

"Law enforcement are going to have to keep their eyes open, and it's up to the tides now," said Clive Wakeford, president of Fish Hoek Livesaving Club.

"It's unwise to swim far out, especially early in the morning and late in the afternoon."

The day before yesterday, lifesavers had told swimmers to get out of the water after fishermen saw sharks. They could do the same today if a shark was seen, Wakeford said.

A relative, who asked not to be named, described Webb as "a remarkable person".

"She was a teacher in Khayelitsha and even during the state of emergency in the 1980s, when the police told white people not to go into the townships, she would go. She followed her own mind, but she had a soft heart. She was very much into literature and the arts."

"In her retirement, she worked for St Luke's Hospice. She was helluva clever, and a very, very special person - a moral force, someone to be proud of."

Said Don Ainslie, who worked with her at the College of Education in Khayelitsha: "She was humble in the extreme and exceptionally kind - she would give anything away to anybody. Her students adored her. When she spoke, it was always so simple and so deep, never pedantic. And she was totally fearless. If somebody did something she saw as immoral, she would fire up and tell them so."

- INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS (SOUTH AFRICA)