‘We carried my father’s dead body’ said Umbilo woman
Umbilo resident says she is heartbroken, not only due to her father's passing but because of the unbefitting manner in which his body was taken out of the building.
LONG-TIME resident at Flamingo Court Lillian Botes said her worst nightmare became a reality on Saturday, August 21, when she received a call from her mother informing her that her father was experiencing a heart attack in the flat that they all share in Umbilo’s 13-floor apartment block, Flamingo Court.
After coming forward to the Berea Mail in May of this year about the elevator at the building being out of order for more than two months, Botes says the issue was resolved but not for long.
“We noticed that the lift wasn’t working on August 17, and a few days later, my father experienced a fatal heart attack, and we had no way of getting him down the stairs other than to carry him down,” said Botes.
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The Umbilo resident says she is heartbroken, not only due to her father’s passing but because of the unbefitting manner in which his body had to be taken out of the building.
“My father was a big guy – he was very tall, and it took six of us – three residents and three representatives from our insurance company – to carry him down seven flights of stairs. He did not deserve to leave this place like that, a place he has spent thirty years of his life living in, where everyone knows and respects him. It was undignified, but we had no choice.”
After reaching out to the lift maintenance company the elevator was fixed by August 22, however, Botes says she doesn’t know how long this will last, and the damage has already been done. “My mother is currently in hospital. She was very ill before my father passed and due to the stress caused because of his passing and the nature in which he passed, she has fallen into a coma.”
According to Botes, paramedics who visited the flat when her mother was ill noted that a 13-floor apartment building should have a working elevator after hearing the horrific story about her father’s dead body being hand-carried down the stairs. “The ambulance-service people said that, by law, the lift can’t be broken at a block of flats,” she said.
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She says her worst fear now is having her mother or other elderly residents carried out of their long-time residence in the same way her father was. “My parents have lived here and paid levies for thirty years. My mother is in hospital, and we are praying she will make it out of her coma. I am not only worried for my mother but all the other elderly residents here at Flamingo Court. This is not the first time the lift has been broken, and I hope that other residents never have to experience what I experienced with my father and especially hope my mother who is very old now, won’t have to be carried out in a body bag the same way my father was.”
