A CLERMONT mother laments the pain she has suffered after her 16-year-old son was severely injured due to an electric shock. Thuthukile Sigwebela said it has been almost a year since her son has been semi-paralysed because of the injury.

“It was March 2022 when we had electricity outages, and people from the municipality came in to fix the problem the next day. They left the place with no warning signs. My son walked on a cable when he was coming back from school. He was severely burnt around the ankle area on both his legs – the shock was so severe that even the pants he wore were terribly torn. The way things were, I was almost sure that he had died, but he survived, luckily,” she said.

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Sigwebela said it has been downhill ever since and has resulted in her child not proceeding to the next grade. “He missed two terms of school, and during these terms, we have been up and down to hospitals. My child has seizures now, and that’s something he never suffered from before. I took him back to school towards the end of the year, and it had not been even an hour since he left when the teachers brought him back home because he suffered a seizure,” she explained.

The mother said this is not only affecting them financially but her child’s well-being. “It is enough that we have to go for regular check-ups, but we also need transport money to get there. Sometimes we have to hire a car, and we also need to buy medication sometimes,” she said.

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Sigwebela said the incident was reported to the municipality, and authorities came to assess the situation but have not gotten back to her ever since. “The father of my child has been going back and forth with them and trying to get answers, but nothing has been done or investigated.”

eThekwini Municipality’s spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said they are not aware of the incident.