Boys contract bug from sewage-infested lagoon
They immediately put both children on a drip for four hours as they dehydrated.
Two young boys were rushed to hospital, suffering from an e.Coli bug and dehydration on Wednesday night, 6 January after swimming in the sewage-infested Winklespruit lagoon.
Sewer pipes on the side of Winifred Close, close to Tecoma Pre-Primary School, leaked into a stream for a number of months. The stream flows directly into the lagoon.
The problem was first reported to the municipality on 29 November, but until Thursday, 8 January nothing was done about it.
“My son, Reagan and his friend, Zain Jansen van Rensburg, both four-years-old, swam in that lagoon on Tuesday,” said Crezelda Gray of Illovo.
“From about 6pm on the Wednesday Reagan was just throwing up and his stomach working. My aunt called at about 10pm to say Zain has also been throwing up and his stomach running, so we decided to take them both to CJ Crookes Hospital.
We took them to casualty and they immediately put both children on a drip for four hours as they where so dehydrated by the time we took them.
That’s when I realised that it must have been the lagoon water that made them so sick because they must have swallowed some of the water and I remembered a woman did post something on a social network site about the lagoon and warning people not to swim in it. I cannot believe that the municipality can be so useless. How many other people are going to get sick from that water
“eThekwini Municipality is aware of the matter and the blockage was cleared late on Thursday afternoon (8 January). The lagoon was aerated to reduce the smell,” said eThekwini head of communications, Tozi Mthethwa.
