A gatepost may have spared the life of an elderly woman when a speeding police van crashed into the yard of her Umlazi home.
|||Durban - A gatepost may have spared the life of an elderly woman when a speeding police van crashed into the yard of her Umlazi home on Tuesday morning.
Busisiwe Mvunu, 70, was in bed when she was startled by a loud bang at about 8.30am.
At first the grandmother feared her daughter, who had just left the house, had been involved in an accident.
“She had just driven out when the van crashed,” said Mvunu.
The Isipingo police officers had been pursuing a stolen Isuzu bakkie in Umlazi A section, when the driver lost control.
A witness and the driver said the police van hit a pothole before veering into the yard, which is at a T-junction.
Sandile Mvunu, who was outside the house at the time, said the van swerved, hit the pothole and flew off the ground before hitting the gatepost and coming to rest on top of a boulder in a neighbour’s yard.
“If it wasn’t for this post then it could have gone straight for the house and the bedroom where my grandmother was sleeping,” said Sandile Mvunu.
Busisiwe’s neighbour, 69-year-old Bertina Gumede, was sitting in her doorway in a state of shock when the Daily News arrived.
“Cars usually crash into the tree stump (at the end of the T-junction), or the pole that was erected by the government, but today’s incident was a first,” said Gumede
The driver of the van, Sergeant Ricky Rajjiah, and his partner, whose name was given only as Constable Gabayi, were unharmed.
Other officers continued the chase and recovered the stolen vehicle, which was abandoned after a wheel was damaged.
Witnesses told the police the suspects had hit a stormwater drain.
The suspects evaded police by getting into a taxi.
Daily News