“She died in my arms,” a Durban grandfather said after his three-year-old granddaughter was hit by two taxis.
|||Durban - “She died in my arms,” a devastated Durban grandfather said on Wednesday after his three-year-old granddaughter was hit by two minibus taxis while running across a busy highway.
“The last word she uttered was ‘grandfather’, before passing on,” said Mhlanganiseleni Msomi.
Samkelisiwe Msomi was hit by the taxis on Inanda Road on Saturday afternoon as her uncle was taking her and her two young cousins home.
They had been visiting a nearby relative.
Their 17-year-old uncle, a Grade 10 pupil, had taken one of the children across the road and was going back for the other two when tragedy struck.
Samkelisiwe thought she was being left behind and instinctively ran on to the road.
“I heard people screaming behind me, that’s when I turned to look, and saw Samke being hit and dragged by a taxi,” the distraught teen said, adding the child was then run over by a second taxi.
The driver of the first taxi sped off.
The teenager said Samkelisiwe was still alive when he rushed to her side, but she was disembowelled and had serious injuries to the side of her head.
The teenager, who rushed to their Dikwe informal settlement home, in Inanda Village, to alert his family, has been told to take leavefrom school to recover from the trauma of witnessing his niece’s death.
The child’s father, Busani Msomi, said his nephew had been deeply affected by the accident.
“He’s wept every day since the incident and blames himself for what happened.”
Mhlanganiseleni Msomi said it was hard to describe what he had seen at the scene of the accident.
“People were trying to help her… We gathered her body parts and covered her with a sheet,” he said.
The driver of the second taxi was at the scene when the family and police arrived.
The family said the driver was asked to take the child to the hospital, but he refused.
They have also asked him to help with the funeral expenses because no one in the family is employed.
Busani said they called the driver of the taxi to meet with them.
“He said ‘What for?’ He thought we were going to do something to him. This hurts us.
“We only wanted him to help us,” Busani said.
“He behaves like he killed a dog, when he killed my child.”
Paramedics were called to the scene and found the child’s body lying at the side of the road.
“She suffered serious injuries and we were too late,” said ER24 spokeswoman, Vanessa Jackson.
SAPS spokesman Captain Thulani Zwane confirmed that the Inanda police were investigating a case of culpable homicide.
He said no arrests had been made.
siyabulela.dzanibe@inl.co.za and tankiso.makhetha@inl.co.za
Daily News
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