Field ranger posthumously awarded for bravery during KNP awards
Walter Chauke was considered a dedicated, loyal and very professional Field Ranger ever to work in the Kruger National Park.
He took his job extremely seriously and was an important member of the Olifants section Field Rangers team.
“Safety was always important to Chauke when conducting his duties,” Programme director Rey Thakuli said during the function.
Walter showed dedication and commitment on 21 June 2018.
Chauke and his fellow colleagues started their operation by doing a vehicle patrol at s93, after checking s93. Teams were deployed into three groups, group one was deployed to patrol Shamariri, group two at Nzio and Walter Chauke’s team was deployed to patrol at Jim Block.
Walter and his fellow colleague, Ronald Mathonsi started patrolling from the south into an eastern direction. The instruction was to do a foot patrol and observation post on the high areas of the block.
“While doing the observation post, Ronald moved out of the site to relive himself and Walter was left alone. At this point a leopard was about to attack him. Walter had not time to think what to do, but as a real conservationist he used his rifle barrel to hit the Leopard on the head as opposed to shooting the Leopard. This bravery action saved the Leopards life and his as the leopard simply ran away,” Thakuli said.
Sadly Walter Chauke passed away on 9 March 2019 after a short illness having worked for the park for a period of 16 years.
His wife Busani received the bravery award on his behalf.
Thomas Sibuyi was also a Bravery Award recipient.
Sibuyi, generaly known as ‘Mr Fix it’ is employed as a general worker specializing in infrastructure maintenance.
Sibuyi was called in to attend to a broken geyser in one of the camps.
“As always, the recipient was ready to jump into the thick of things – got his partner and off they went to fix the problem. No problem is to big for him. So as they were hard at work with a hand held blue light torch used to weld, out of know where a ball of fire sprung out of the torch and it burn their faces,” Thakuli said.
Sibuyi ran outside but his partner remained inside unconsciously. He quickly realized he was alone outside and ran back, risking his own life to rescue his unconscious colleague by carrying him out.
“His actions have not only saved a life of a colleague but also the staff house in which they were working in from burning to ashes. This man went as far as reporting the matter and made sure that him and the colleague get medical attention. What is comforting is both the employees are back at work,” Thakuli concluded.
