“This event has become part of my life and talking about it now feels like it was just yesterday,” said Pieter Steyn, a then-emergency services responder who attended on the day of the Westdene bus tragedy (March 27, 1985).
“I grew up swimming in the dam and my father used to regularly pull children from the water, when they got into trouble so I knew the terrain well. But seeing so many children in distress or deceased that day has never left me.”
He learnt that there had been an incident at the dam after routine monitoring of certain radio channels as part of their work as first responders. “Members of the public had alerted a traffic officer who immediately called for help. We ran to our cars and flew across town; I have never travelled faster in my life.”
He describes a scene of total chaos when he arrived. “I had a suit on that day, which I stripped off as I ran towards the water. I was in my underwear and dived in to see who I could help. I immediately saw children swimming to the dam wall and knew they would get into trouble when they got there, because it is high and they might start pushing each other down to try and climb out. So I guided them to the reeds and went to the bus.”
He said the children who were on top of the bus were all right as long as they were calm as the water was not deep. “I dived into the bus and was thinking clinically about how to get the children out. You can’t be emotional at times like this, you must work quickly and efficiently to save lives. It was only later that night, when I got home, that the shock of what I had just witnessed hit me. An experience like that never goes away.”
The colour photograph of the boy in the hospital was one of the children he resuscitated. “We pulled him to the top of the bus and used the bodies of two children to bring him above the waterline and gave him CPR. Luckily, he made it and I swam him to shore.”
He said the Shell news photograph of the year was the one of him in the water next to the body of a girl who had not survived.
“I was disappointed that not more people were acknowledged for their bravery that day in trying to save the children. So many people without regard for their own safety took risks to help.”
Steyn worked in the emergency services for 18 years and is now retired.
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