Man who rolled down God’s Window gets new set of teeth

NELSPRUIT – Thabo Lubisi can smile broadly again. He miraculously survived a 90-metre plummet down God’s Window near Graskop last year. The only thing he lost in the fall was some of his top front teeth.

Lowvelder reported on the incident in November. Lubisi and some of his colleagues from Eden Nature Reserve, located about 10km from Nelspruit on the Sabie/Lydenburg Road, had visited the tourist attraction to do some social team building. Mr Anton Strydom of the Off-Road Rescue Unit (ORRU), who retrieved the injured Lubisi from the side of the mountain, told the newspaper he was lucky to be alive after falling and rolling approximately 30 storeys down the mountainside.

Lubisi cut his head open in the fall and the scars are still evident. Together with a swollen knee and four missing teeth, it was, however, the full extent of his injuries. “I am just glad to be alive,” he told Lowvelder this week. He agreed to meet with the newspaper after a good Samaritan dentist had fixed his smile.

Dr Tony Ferri, a local dentist, heard about Lubisi through his friends, Ms Penny and Mr Clive MacFarlane. The couple lives on the nature reserve where Lubisi works. “I knew about him and I heard that the loss of his teeth had affected him quite a bit psycologically,” Ferri said. He offered to design a plate and false teeth for him. Ferri credited Expodent, a local dental technology

laboratory, and specifically Mr Charl Potgieter from the lab, for manufacturing the teeth free of charge. He put the cost at about R2 000.

Lubisi is smiling again. He said he doesn’t remember the incident very well. He remembered they were enjoying themselves and taking photographs, and that the railing he had climbed onto was slippery from rain and mist. The next thing he knew he was lying some distance down the picturesque mountain.

“There was a tree branch on top of me when I woke up. I couldn’t get it off me. After a while, a man came down to rescue me. I fought with him. The accident happened at around 11:00 but they only found me at about 16:00.”

The weather was too poor for a helicopter to attempt a rescue, so rescue workers devised a pulley, and, after stabilising him, pulled him up. When the skies cleared, the chopper returned and transported him to hospital.

However, while he was awaiting rescue, a bystander (he doesn’t know who) phoned his family with the news of his death.

“I don’t know who phoned them, but I think they told them I was dead because it took so long to rescue me. From the time they put me in the helicopter, I can’t remember anything until I woke up in hospital. They must have given me drugs for the pain.”

When he woke up, 11 of his family members were at his bedside. He was initially treated in the intensive care unit to monitor the wound to his head but spent only five days in hospital before being discharged.

Penny said it was miraculous that the only injuries he had sustained were to his front teeth. After Lubisi had recuperated at home for some time, Charl asked Ferri to assist.

This miracle man has now regained his confidence and smiles broadly to show his very natural-looking front teeth to the world.