City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services received over 254 emergency phone calls during the New Year’s Eve Celebrations night. The recorded calls were made between 7pm on 31 December and 5.30 am on 1 Januray. Spokesperson for City EMS, Robert Mulaudzi said most of the incidents that were reported were mainly assault cases. He said around 70 percent calls received were people reporting cases of assault with the other 30 percent of calls being that of motor vehicle accidents and pedestrian accidents.
Mulaudzi also confirmed that six people lost their lives in six separate incidents in Johannesburg on31 December. Out of 27 pedestrian accidents reported on New Year’s eve, two pedestrians died when they were knocked down by speeding vehicles in two separate incidents. Out of the 171 assault incidents reported on the same day, four people lost their lives in four separate incidents.
In Hillbrow six cases of assault were reported and two patient were treated for serious assault injuries and later transported to Charlotte Maxeke hospital for further medical care, another four patients were treated for minor to moderate assault injuries.
“We are relatively happy about the overall conduct of the citizens of the city of Johannesburg most importantly Hillbrow and the surrounding areas, even though we had six fatalities, this continued change in behaviour can be attributed to the constant operations conducted by the law enforcement agencies (Metro Police and Police) and also the bylaws compliance operations which we normally conduct before the new years eve targeting the wholesale, dealers, resellers of fireworks checking on their permits, storage capacity and the authenticity of the permits,” Mulaudzi commented.
