Just 19 days after being impaled by a 2m-long industrial crowbar, Daniel de Wet walked out of hospital. In a statement issued by Martina Nicholson Associates (MNA) on behalf of Netcare on 27 July, the incident was explained. De Wet, an engineering supervisor at a gold mine near Carletonville was assissting with a breakdown 3.5km underground. He was working with a crowbar, commonly known as a gwala. “I was using the gwala to stir up the mud,” he said. “I wanted to stand up on the suction pipe, which stands about a metre high, and somehow I slipped.”
De Wet looked down and saw that the gwala had penetrated his body, going in between his legs and coming out his back, just below his shoulder blade. “Because of the adrenaline rush, I had absolutely no pain at first. There was only one guy with me, he became very scared and didn’t know what to do. I told him to calm down and call for help on the two-way radio.” Within minutes, a crew with a first-aid pack and stretcher arrived. “They didn’t know how to put me on the stretcher because of the way the gwala was sticking out of my back. I told the guys: ‘Calm down, let’s think what to do’.”
De Wet is accustomed to keeping a cool head in dangerous situations as he himself is a member of the mine’s rescue team and has been trained to deal with emergencies. In this case, the best the team could do was to perch De Wet on the stretcher in a sitting position. They carried him like this through the knee-high muddy water for about a 40m to a cage lift, waiting to hoist them to the surface. “On 34 level sub-shaft, paramedics of the mine met me and gave me morphine for the pain. I remember nothing further, until I woke up two weeks later in Netcare Milpark Hospital.”
De Wet was lifted to the surface at a pace that would ensure that he did not suffer any adverse decompression effects, commonly known as ‘the bends’. He was airlifted to hospital an hour after the accident. Trauma director of Netcare Milpark Hospital’s emergency department, Professor Kenneth Boffard said, “I had to think of it in terms of a technical problem to which I had to apply my mind in order to decide on the best course of treatment for the patient.” De Wet was placed under anaesthetic and laid on his side. “We got some strong paramedics to pull out the gwala by about half a metre so that it was flush with his body. This allowed us to lie the patient on his back.”
It was found that the gwala had been pressing on the blood vessels and thus prevented too much blood loss. Two surgical teams operated on De Wet – one team concentrating on the abdomen and one on the chest. “Given the traumatic nature of his injury, our first operation could not last any longer than 60 minutes. During this procedure, we did massive damage control in order to stem the bleeding and to contain any form of contamination caused by his injury,” Prof Boffard said. He added that it was a procedure in which the doctor had to know when to stop, to keep the patient alive.
“During the next, more major procedure, extensive repair work was undertaken. In cases of extreme trauma, this can generally happen only 24 to 48 hours later, when the patient is more stable and can withstand the trauma of a longer, more extensive procedure. This is the methodology followed with Mr de Wet and it was crucial to his full recovery.” Once the gwala was pulled completely free, the doctors saw that the impalement had caused significant damage, destroying one kidney and damaging the small bowel and numerous blood vessels. De Wet said that his team from the mine was allowed to pray for him inside the intensive care unit.
“Even though I was unconscious, they told me later that the tears were rolling down my cheeks when they prayed,” he said. Although de Wet lost a kidney, he made rapid progress and was able to walk after being transferred to the high care unit. Only 19 days after the accident, De Wet was discharged from hospital. He has since returned to active duty at the mine and continues to serve on the mine’s rescue team. He concluded, “My employers had the gwala chromed and mounted on a stone with a Bible verse on it. I’m planning to donate it to Netcare Milpark Hospital as a token of my appreciation for all they have done for me. What I have learned from this whole experience is: ‘You must believe in miracles every day’.”
