Ramaphosa reservist acts quickly to avert tragedy

On Monday the 28th of October 2013 at about 8pm, Maqungu, a resident of the Ramaphosa Informal Settlement, was getting ready for bed when she heard shouts of “fire, fire, fire!” She quickly got dressed by candlelight into her uniform, grabbed her bucket and ran outside. She looked for smoke and ran in that direction.

Maqungu heard people screaming inside one of the shacks and knew that she had to help. She pulled down the fence of the shack before reaching the front door and kicking it open. Confronted by the dark, smoke-filled room, she had to make a split second decision; should she crawl into the room without a self-contained breathing apparatus?

She decided to go in. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled in. She was able to find an adult and two young boys, aged eight and 14, in the far corner of the shack. She battled to convince them that she was there to help them. They finally agreed to co-operate with her, after which she calmly pulled them along, guiding them through the door. 

When they were all outside, they saw that the flames had started covering the roof of the shack. Maqungu immediately initiated the bucket brigade system to put out the fire. The nearest tap was almost 15 metres away. She asked bystanders to bring water in whichever containers they had.

Maqungu had to stand at a strategic point so as to avoid smoke inhalation while people ran to fetch water. They passed the buckets to Maqungu who then doused the flames. She was getting very tired – each bucket had weighed around 20 kilograms. It was as if the supply was endless, but she didn’t give up.

When Maqungu felt that the flames were sufficiently extinguished, she left the scene to go and wait for the arrival of the fire truck. At the scene, the platoon found that three shacks had completely burned down and one was still smouldering. As a result of the bucket brigade system that Maqungu implemented with community members to extinguish the fire, multiple shacks were saved from burning in the vicinity.

Vote for Cynthia Maqungu by watching her story on the Centrum® Guardians website www.centrumguardians.com.

Centrum® Guardians is an initiative that showcases our nation’s multi-disciplinary and high calibre Emergency and Rescue Services to the South African public.

For every Centrum sold in July and August, the company will contribute funding towards emergency and rescue services specialised training. The next life they save could be yours. Follow @CentrumSA on Twitter or visit the Centrum South Africa Facebook page.