VANDERBIJLPARK. – A trip to Vaal Mall early in January to buy school clothes turned into a nightmare for a 54-year-old teacher from Evaton after a cherry picker crushed and degloved her foot in a freak accident.
Peggy Sitei (54), a teacher at the Imfundo Primary School, was left bedridden with amputated toes and unable to work after the cherry picker (a hydraulic crane with railed platform at the end for raising and lowering people) rammed into her and drove over her foot on 12 January.
Peggy, went shopping for school clothes, along with her husband Greg Sitei (52), sons and granddaughter on the day the incident occurred.
Greg recalls: “We went there to buy school shoes. We were walking through the mall. I heard people screaming.
When I looked back my wife was on the floor with the wheel of the cherry picker on her leg.
“Her whole foot was degloved (the skin had been completely ripped off). A medical doctor who was in the mall at the time assisted us and a lot of people helped.
“The security guards where just standing there, looking at us with folded arms,” Greg recalls. According to Greg his children witnessed the incident firsthand and was left traumatised.
major surgical interventions to treat, resulting in a
medical bill amounting to thousands of rands and the
amputation of his wife’s toes. Photo: Christiaan
Cloete. Photos: Christiaan Cloete
According to Greg, workers at the mall used the cherry picker to remove Christmas decorations left over from the festive season at the time of the incident.
Following the incident Peggy was airlifted to the Netcare Union Hospital in Alberton where she received extensive surgery to her left foot, which also involved the amputation of her toes.
According to Greg they have since incurred thousands of rands of expenses as a direct result of the incident, with the medical aid having been depleted.
Peggy is unable to work as a result of the incident. Greg further alleges that the mall manager was not present during the time of the incident and that there were no safety precautions or signs informing shoppers that work was being done inside the mall.
He also finds it strange that work to remove Christmas decorations was done at such a busy time, when hundreds of shoppers were present to do last minute shopping before the school term started.
According to Greg, requests made by his lawyer for the mall to hand over CCTV footage of the incident, as well as a written statement has so far fell on deaf ears.
Kobus van der Westhuizen, Peggy’s lawyer, confirmed that he was acting on behalf of Sitei in the matter.
According to Van der Westhuisen, the Vaal Mall’s insurer stood in on behalf of the mall in the matter. Van der Westhuizen confirmed that CCTV footage of the incident as well as a formal statement with regards to the incident was requested earlier this year.
“Since then we are still waiting on the footage as well as the statement,” Van der Westhuizen explained. Carla de Villiers-Malan, Marketing Manager of Vaal Mall, said in a brief statement that the Vaal Mall is aware of Mrs Peggy Sitei’s injury while she was at the mall. “Due to the nature of the incident, all discussions are being conducted through formal channels,” she said.
