A broken vehicle led to 39-year-old Lydia Mienie becoming a crime statistic yesterday afternoon.
Mienie, who is five months pregnant, was supposed to be at work but the previous evening her vehicle’s brakes gave out and she had no choice but to stay home the next day. He husband went to work and her eight-year-old son went to school. Just before she was to walk to his school to fetch him, she lied down on the couch and fell asleep. At 12.35pm she heard a rustling at the back glass door (although it was open, the safety gate was locked). At first she thought it was her husband but then realised he did not have the key. She jumped up and at that very moment the three men managed to break the gate’s lock with a pickaxe and enter the house.
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She started yelling but they ordered her to be quite or they would kill her. (Throughout the ordeal they threatened that they would shoot her but due to the trauma she can not remember ever seeing a firearm.) Two of the men started ransacking the house while the third held her down. While on the floor the robber holding her down tried to wring her three-piece wedding ring off her fingers with his teeth. Her fingers were swollen because of her being pregnant, so he could not get the ring off. She then offered to take it off herself, but because she was shaking she failed. Again he took her finger and this time got it off with his teeth.
They locked her into a cupboard and continued ransacking the house. After 15 minutes Mienie managed to get out of the cupboard, not realising they were still in the house. As she reached the hallway one of them saw her and yelled at her. She quickly turned around and locked the gate separating the bedrooms from the rest of the house.
Mienie climbed through the bathroom window and alerted her neighbour, but the robbers had fled in the meantime.
“I just prayed and prayed throughout. Maybe this was a test by God. Maybe He wants me to pray more,” said Mienie philosophically.
She said she is now living in fear, looking through the windows constantly. The doctor said the baby is safe but that she as well as her son need trauma counselling.
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