Non-Witness Narrative by (name not provided) on 2010-12-22 (okay to publish): Hendrik Coetzee was killed by a crocodile while leading an expedition to map unknown whitewater areas in the vicinity of the upper White Nile river in Africa. According to Chris Korbulic, one of the two people Coetzee was guiding, the 3 paddlers were on a stretch of flat, green water about 100 feet wide, in the middle of the river. They were in tight formation, so close their paddles would hit if they didn’t stay in synch. This was Coetzee’s strategy to deter attack by both hippos and crocodiles, presumably because they would appear to any predator like one larger animal instead of 3 smaller ones. Coetzee was in the center in a red boat. The paddler on the left was slightly ahead, and the paddler on the right (Korbulic) was slightly behind. Unknown to them, a mature 15-foot crocodile approached the group from the rear. Korbulic said, “I glanced over to measure that we were not paddling towards or away from each other. And just in my periphery I saw the crocodile come out of the water, and he got onto Hendri’s left side – just the left shoulder with its mouth.” The two paddlers watched in horror as the overturned boat shook for about 20 seconds, presumably while the crocodile was pulling Coetzee out of the tight-fitting cockpit. Realizing they could do nothing, they paddled as fast as they could less than a mile downstream to a village, where they caught Coetzee’s boat as it floated by, without even a scratch to tell how he had disappeared. (condensed from AP report dated 12/21/10, written by Jeff Barnard)