DUNDEE KZN: Car guard hailed a hero
"I was happy to help. To be a car guard, you must always be alert and keep a lookout, as many people do not observe clearly."
A car guard’s frantic shouts to a truck driver to stop his vehicle probably saved the life of a woman who was run over at the notorious Victoria/Gladstone Street intersection.
Mbekseni Sithole, who for five years has been car guarding in the Gladstone Street area, heard a commotion and people shouting last Monday morning. He ran over to see that passersby were shouting at a truck driver to stop as he was crossing the intersection.
Mbekseni then realised that a woman had been hit by the truck and had been pulled under the double-axle vehicle. He immediately ran to the driver’s cab, also yelling at him to stop. The driver did indeed stop and was horrified to see the elderly woman under his vehicle.
One of her legs had been badly injured. While waiting for paramedics and traffic police to arrive, Mbekseni ‘jumped in’ as an impromptu traffic officer and began directing traffic that had become disrupted following the accident. Medical help arrived to assess the victim’s injuries, and traffic police were also at the scene. The woman was stabilised before being taken to Dundee Hospital and then to Madadeni Hospital, where she underwent several operations. Police took a warning statement from the driver of the Cape Town registered truck.
Witnesses said that if Mbekseni had not reacted so quickly to stop the driver, who did not know he had hit the woman, she would certainly have been run over by one of the truck’s tyres. “I was happy to help. To be a car guard, you must always be alert and keep a lookout, as many people do not observe clearly. I hope people take more care on the roads, as our roads in Dundee are very busy with trucks,” he told the Courier.
Read more: Woman hit by a truck in central Dundee
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