Reformed drug lord spreads love and positivity
“I remember my last day running from police. I had a hundred packs of Mandrax on me and I was trying my best to flee from police.”
A 65-year-old reformed drug lord has made it his life mission to spread positivity after his life took a drastic turn.
Richard Macroni, who is now bound to a wheelchair with both legs amputated, has spent the past 27 years spreading positivity at Kungwini Welfare Organisation in Zwavelpoort, east of Pretoria.
Macroni shared with Rekord how his days as a drug lord and boss of the underworld were the darkest days of his life.
“I remember my last day running from police. I had a hundred packs of Mandrax on me and I was trying my best to flee from police.
“The next thing I remember was falling in front of my house in Lotus Gardens. When I was getting up to start running again, I felt this burning sensation in my back,” Macroni recalled.
Macroni said the burning sensation had been a result of being shot multiple times. He sustained three bullet wounds to his back and one to his left leg which left him paralysed.
“The next thing I remember was waking up in Kalafong hospital. I spent three of the 18 months at the hospital in a coma,” he said.
When Macroni came out of his coma, he sadly realised he would not be able to walk again.
“Doctors told me I sustained spinal injuries that would leave me paralysed forever.
“I was still a criminal suspect so I had to be strapped to my bed with 24-hour police surveillance the entire time I was in hospital,” said Macroni.
After Macroni was discharged he had to stand trial for his crime but was pardoned by the magistrate.
“He told me I had already been punished for my crimes and he wouldn’t punish me any further,” he said.
Macroni ended up at Kungwini Welfare Organisation after the social worker in charge of his case arranged that he be admitted to a home for the mentally and physically challenged.
Sixteen years after moving to Kungwini, Macroni suddenly discovered that he had cancerous cells in his left leg.
“The doctors never saw the bullet that was stuck in my left leg and I did not know about it.
“It was dangerous and could have killed me. I was seriously ill and a pastor was called to pray for me,” said Macroni.
He thought the pastor was there to pray for him to be accepted into heaven but he told the pastor that he wasn’t dying anytime soon.
Doctors informed Macroni at the hospital that they would have to amputate his left leg because of the infection.
“I told them to amputate both legs because I don’t use the other one anyway. Having just one leg would have looked funny,” he said.
Macroni believes he had experienced something supernatural on the day he was discharged from the hospital.
“I was in the hospital’s reception when I felt two people lift me by my arms. I did not see either of them even though both my eyes were wide open.
“I still get shivers just thinking about it,” he said.
He believed he encountered angels that day that not only helped him gain strength but hope that he would survive.
Macroni has been a garden and security manager at the organisation since then. His co-workers and other residents speak fondly of his presence and describe him as an asset to the organisation.
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