Angels enable mother to stay by daughter’s bedside

MBOMBELA – We don’t often see acts of kindness these days. However, a mother of Johannesburg whose 24-year-old daughter was critically injured in an accident last month, was privileged enough to have not one, but two angels cross her path.

She hitchhiked from Gauteng with her three young children on Sunday to be by her daughter’s bedside and was overwhelmed when an ICU nurse, took them under her wing. This random act of kindness, led to more and demonstrated that there was still a lot of good in the world.

Germaine Fambing contacted Lowvelder to share the heart-warming story. Her daughter, Kaylynn Sideres was involved in an accident on June 28. Her boyfriend, Nicholas Benn, lives on a farm on the Plaston Road. The couple was on their way there at about 19:30. Nicholas had been driving his motorbike and Kaylynn was driving behind him in her own vehicle.

“I turned left on the gravel road to my house and arrived there. I waited about five minutes, but Kaylynn didn’t come. I drove back to the road to go look for her,” Nicholas said. He found her car which had hit a fence on the side of the road – about 700 metres from the turn-off.

“She had lost control on a left-hand bend and the vehicle left the road. It overturned and hit the fence.”
An eyewitness alerted the paramedics and Kaylynn was taken to Mediclinic Nelspruit. She had sustained serious injuries – including bleeding on the brain and lung contusions. She was in a coma since the accident and only woke up on Sunday. Germaine had come to the Lowveld shortly after the accident, but had to return to Gauteng to care for her children aged five, seven and nine.

When she learnt that Kaylynn had regained consciousness, she wanted to be by her side and hitchhiked with her children to the Lowveld.

They were all going to stay at Kaylynn’s cottage but when they arrived there, her belongings had already been packed and placed in storage. ICU nurse Tania Annandale, who had taken Germaine and her kids there, then offered to book them into Bundu Lodge for the night at her own expense.

Enesta Janson, co-owner of Bundu, noticed Germaine at the coffee stand at the lodge on Tuesday morning. “I noticed that she was very sad and asked her if she was in the Lowveld on holiday,” Enesta said. Germaine broke down in tears and told her about Kaylynn’s accident. She added that she would have to return to Gauteng that day since she couldn’t afford to stay there anymore.

Enesta then offered them a free stay, breakfasts included, until Friday.

“I couldn’t believe it!” Germaine cried. It was because Enesta shared Germaine’s pain. Her own son – Jandries van Kraayenburg (31) – was on holiday in Jantjiesfontein near Stilbaai in December 2011. He had done a wheelie with an off-road bike and fell on the back of his head. He sustained brain bleeding like Kaylynn, but didn’t survive.

Enesta relived the tragedy as she shared her son’s story. She added that she was grateful that she could spend her son’s last hours on earth with him and that he had passed away in her arms. “Your child doesn’t belong to you. What you are, is grace and what you have, is lent to you. According to the rules of nature, older people die first, but that isn’t always the case.”

Germaine said, “Bundu is such a beautiful establishment and I have felt closer to God here in the Lowveld than ever before.”

Kaylynn is still in ICU. “She will have to go to a rehabilitation centre and learn to swallow, talk and walk again, like a baby,” Tania said.