24th August 2011

 ‘Sea was red in seconds’

Friends of carpenter and leather craftsman Tim van Heerden looked on in horror when he was ripped off his surfboard and attacked by a shark at the popular Plettenberg Bay surf spot off Lookout Rocks yesterday.

“The sea turned red around him within seconds,” said Van Heerden’s close friend Tim Clarke, who witnessed the attack shortly after 9am from the Lookout viewpoint above the surf spot.

Van Heerden, 49, also known as “Tim Boots” in his Plettenberg Bay home town for the handcrafted leather moccasins he produced, died of his injuries and massive blood loss at the Plettenberg Bay Medi-Clinic. The shark bit his left leg twice, high up on the thigh and in the groin area before letting go and swimming away.