3 DEAD, 4 INJURED IN HORROR ACCIDENT

SIGWE - What was supposed to be a celebrated successful event turned to be a nightmare for some Sigwe residents.

This is when a van carring women from the event was involved in a fatal accident . Three females aged between 40 and 45 were confirmed dead  while four were critically inured after being involved in the  accident. However, it was later confirmed that more of the patients succumbed to injuries while undergoing treatment at Matsanjeni Health Centre. The number of patients was not available at the time of compiling this report .The victims were all participants at the Price  Sicalo Foundation event which had just officially opened a soup kitchen and a pre-school under Sigwe Inkhundla.  The event was attended by, among others, Deputy Prime Minister Thuli Dladla, Minister of Labour and Social Security Phila Buthelezi, Sigwe MP David Ngcamphalala and Gege MP Magesi Dlamini.

Departure

A few minutes after the event came to a close and the departure of the prominent guests, the success of the event was shadowed by the news of the accident that occurred at least one kilometre from the event setting. Alleged suspicions of drunk driving were brought to the fore as cans of alcoholic beverages were witnessed at the scene. An eye witness who was interviewed at the scene said the driver, identified as Tsabedze, was moving at a high speed ,such that she allegedly had to jump outside at the edge of the road seeing that the car was coming straight towards her.

She narrated that after a short while, they heard a loud bang a few metres from where they were and loud screams from people closer to the scene followed. “At the speed that the car was travelling, I suspected that this would not end well. My suspicions were confirmed when we arrived at the scene and found bodies of injured people lying on the ground. It was an ugly scene and people were  crying,” she said. One of the survivors, who had bruises on the face and was bleeding and in  obvious pain, said she suspected that  the driver was drunk because he had been allegedly seen imbibing alcohol for the better part of the day at the event.

A police Officer who was on the scene, Elijah Khumalo from the Nhlangano Regional Headquarters confirmed that one person died on the scene while two of the passengers were critical. He narrated that people were badly hurt during the accident and he also confirmed that the car was coming from the event that was held a few metres away from the accident.  He detailed that information they received was that the car was travelling at a high speed and that may have been the cause of the accident but he didn’t have the finer details at the time of the interview.

Confirmation

When enquired on whether the suspicions of drink driving were anything to go by, he said that even though there were containers of alcoholic beverages at the scene, they could not confirm that because that would entail doing the procedure of checking the alcohol content from the driver to confirm. “Driving through a gravel road can be very dangerous especially when the vehicle is moving at a high speed. Drivers have a tendency of taking lightly that gravel road can be slippery and they can easily lose control of the vehicle and cause an accident. The fact that he had passengers at the back of the van should have been enough to make him practice caution and that is what we always advice drivers to do,” he said.

Sigwe Member of Parliament David ‘Cruiser’Ngcamphalala, who was at a loss for words and evidently puzzled from a mere glance on his facial expressions, revealed that it was hard to talk and he was shattered by the turn of events. “It has happened and there is nothing we can do about it. We only hope that God protects those that are still alive and we pass our sincere condolences to the families that have lost  lives,” he said. The patients were rushed to Matsanjeni Clinic.

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