A saviour in the snow
Sandton local and business woman Ginny Marx recounted how she arranged a warmer winter for homeless people after encountering a man who would have frozen to death were it not for her intervention.
A Bryanston resident recounted how where the snow was a cause of excitement for many across regions of Johannesburg on July 10, not everyone was guaranteed reprieve from the cold.
Sandton local and businesswoman Ginny Marx recounted how she arranged a warmer winter for homeless people after encountering a man who would have frozen to death were it not for her intervention.
“On the way to the flower market on Monday July 1, as I entered the Houghton off-ramp from the M1, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was snowing but I realised that there was a body in the grass on the side of the road,” Marx said.
“I stopped and ran back and started phoning the police as I thought he was dead. The next minute he started shivering but was completely unresponsive.”
Marx, knowing she needed an ambulance, began flagging down motorists – yet nobody would stop. She managed to wave down a police car with the assistance of two men from the other side of the road.
“A wonderful [police]man stopped, and we all managed to get the man into his van. We covered him with a blanket, and the policeman rushed him to the Johannesburg General Hospital.”
Following the incident, Marx initiated a campaign through Facebook towards trying to raise blankets for those in need of warmth to help them survive the winter.
“By the next day we had raised just less than R15 000. I bought the first 40 blankets and started distributing them among the homeless.” Marx said she struggled to find the man again – yet kept on hoping that their paths would cross again. Her hopes were answered on Nelson Mandela day (July 18) when fate reunited them under less grim circumstances.
“He is alive and well. I finally found him and was able to give him a blanket too.”
Marx’s quick thinking saved a life, and brought heat to some of those in urgent need of blankets this winter. She said the response from her social media outreach was so massive that contributions came even from as far as the United States of America.
Related article:
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/332669/furry-fun-filled-mandela-day/https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/332598/crawford-international-school-celebrate-nelson-mandela-day/
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/332598/crawford-international-school-celebrate-nelson-mandela-day/
