Four children suffocate in locked car
Two toddlers died while the others still fighting for their lives in hospital.
TWO children, a boy (3) and a girl (2), suffocated to death in a locked vehicle in Clermont on Tuesday, 19 January.
The four children (aged between two and three years old) were playing together in a neighbour’s yard, climbed into one of the vehicles and locked themselves in and were unable to get out.
The neighbour, Ernest Phiri, works as a part-time mechanic and parks the broken-down vehicles in his front yard.
The vehicle that the children were stuck in arrived on Monday and was left unlocked for Phiri to fix. There were four other disused vehicles parked in Phiri’s yard and he claims theses vehicles were always locked.
According to the family, another set of neighbours noticed the children in the car and rushed to remove them from the vehicle before taking all four unconscious children to the clinic, where the two died.
The other two children are in a critical condition at the St Mary’s Hospital in Mariannhill.
The incident took place while Phiri was at work. “When I got the call I was so confused, my heart was broken, I still can’t believe it,” said Phiri.
Phiri, still shaken, explained how close he was to one of the children and how he treated him like his own. “When his mother was in labour I rushed her to hospital, but before we reached the hospital she had to give birth and I assisted her,” he said.
Thuleleni Sikhosana, the aunt and grandmother to the two children that died, said the children have always played with their friends in the neighbour’s yard. “This was the last thing on our minds, we always expected them to come back home,” she said.
Sikhosana said her sister, Ntombenhle Sithole dropped off her daughter, Asphile with them in the morning while she went job-hunting, and when she came back to pick her up her daughter, she still wanted to play with her friends so she left her there.
When she came to pick her daughter again later, she learned the sad news.
Sikhosana’s daughter Nontokozo Sithole, mother of the three-year-old who died and the two-year-old who is still in hospital, was at home when the tragic incident took place at around 1pm.
“She couldn’t go looking for them as she was looking after my father, who can’t talk or walk due to suffering a stroke,” said Sikhosana.
Sikhosana’s niece doesn’t have funeral cover. “We don’t know how we will bury her because we don’t have the money,” she explained.
The family is appealing for any assistance from anyone who is willing to help with the burial of the toddlers.
