Eyewitness recalls pedestrian death on R40

The recent pedestrian accident on the R40 left many motorists traumatised. One eyewitness said it happened right before her eyes.

An eyewitness recalled how she shouted “No!” at the sight of a woman crossing the road near the University of Mpumalanga.

Mere seconds later, to her absolute shock and horror, the pedestrian was crushed by a truck travelling on the R40 towards Mbombela on Wednesday May 31. Emer-G-Med said it had received the call at 07:37 and upon arriving, described the scene as some of the worst it had ever seen.

Motorists who passed by the accident said the sight of the aftermath had left them traumatised, with one saying the pedestrian ‘got torn into pieces’.

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The eyewitness said it was difficult to decipher a mere three seconds into what had occurred. “It honestly happened so fast, I don’t even think it was three seconds.”

According to her, it seemed like the victim did not look before running across the road.

The witness said she had not been travelling particularly quickly at the time.

“I mean, she obviously could not hear me, I was in a car, but when I saw her… she didn’t look. If she would have looked, I might even have opened my window and said ‘Hey!’.

Then and there she pulled over and did something other motorists are commending her for.

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“I just stopped, I pulled over and I just… first thing I did was pray, then got out and locked my car and started directing traffic. I went back to the junction and started moving everybody over to that side. I wasn’t looking, I wasn’t concentrating on it, I was just… I didn’t want them to ride over the body again. It’s horrible.”

The right-hand lane heading into Mbombela was closed for some time during the morning as authorities were on the scene. Traffic flowed, albeit slowly.

The victim had no form of identification on her and was still unidentified at the time of publishing.

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