Victims of horror taxi crash identified
Bleeding heavily from a head injury, the one passenger was surrounded by the bodies of those who did not survive the impact
SHOCKED bystanders stood by helplessly listening to a woman’s screams as paramedics tried to calm her down.
She was trapped inside the mangled wreck of the taxi she had been travelling in, bleeding heavily from a head injury and surrounded by the bodies of those who did not survive the impact.
A paramedic from KZN EMS reached a gloved hand in through a window to wrap a bandage around her head, all the while speaking to her to ease her fears
Five others, Ntombifuthi Mthethwe (56), Lindiwe Thabete (45), Khululekile Shabane (48), Mildred Ngema (53) as well as the driver Richard Khambule (38) were not so lucky, their bodies covered with silver foil, mangled and broken, a macabre tableau of their final moments.
The sixth, Jabu Kunene (50), would later die in hospital, her injuries so severe that trained trauma surgeons could not save her.
This is what ZO journalists saw at the scene of the horror taxi crash on the R102 near the University of Zululand traffic circle, approximately 15km from Empangeni on Monday.
Footage from the bus dash cam showed the moments leading up to the crash – the taxi clipping the back bumper of a Toyota Tazz before swerving directly into the oncoming bus.
Tracey Coertse of Meditrax EMS was coordinating the scene and confirmed the number of fatalities.
‘Five other passengers sustained moderate injuries and four others slight injuries,’ she said.
‘One patient was taken to Life Empangeni Private Hospital, while the others were transported to Ngwelezana Hospital,’ Coertse said.
MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison, Mxolisi Kaunda, on Tuesday visited the family members of the victims to express his condolences in person.
Police and Road Traffic Inspectorate officials explained the circumstances of the accident to the families and how the speed the taxi was travelling at on its journey from Pietermaritzburg to Empangeni, contributed to the mayhem.
‘If drivers follow the rules of the road, lives would be saved,’ Kaunda said.
He spoke to the families for nearly twenty minutes, advising them on a range of issues they would be forced to deal with, including the Road Accident Fund.
He also urged law enforcement and local political leadership to increase visibility in the area of the accident scene as many university students use the R102 to travel to varsity every day.
Meanwhile on the N2 near Bridge B, the driver of a Toyota Camry, reportedly avoiding the burned out wreck of a car at the side of the road, hit a small bus transporting Bell Equipment employees to Stanger.
He also side-swiped two other cars.
A total of six injured were taken to Life Empangeni Private Hospital, while another was taken to Ngwelezana Hospital.
None of them was seriously injured.
On Tuesday afternoon, a taxi overturned on the old Mtubatuba road near Dover Combined School, but no serious injuries were reported.
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