Yet another pedestrian was injured in a traffic accident on the city’s streets on Monday.
A woman, who is believed to have been crossing the road on the corner of Ferreira and Kestell streets, was hit by a car.
Mr Jo Koster, who was one of the first people on the scene, said he was picking up his wife from work at a nearby office building when he took a phone call outside and heard the collision. It was about 17:05.
“You don’t mistake the sound of a body hitting a car,” he said.
Emergency services were contacted while passersby stopped to regulate traffic before Hi-Tech Security Nelspruit and Bossies Community Justice arrived on the scene.
According to Koster an off-duty paramedic also happened to pass by and assisted the injured pedestrian before she was taken to hospital by ambulance.
He says a number of people cross the busy Ferreira Street in the afternoons at peak traffic time to catch one of the buses that stop on the opposite side of the street.
At the end of last year a survey by an insurance company found that drivers in Mbombela were the worst in the country, mainly due to speeding.
Pedestrians getting injured on the city’s streets are nothing new. Two weeks ago a pedestrian was also hit by a car in Samora Machel Drive in front of the Mbombela Library, and last year Nelspruit Post reported on a number of pedestrians who had gotten hit while crossing the busy R40 in the Riverside area.
Koster said the police took a long time to arrive at the scene on Monday and the patient had been taken to hospital before the police arrived.
SAPS Nelspruit spokesman, Capt Dawie Pretorius confirmed that the patient was taken to hospital. He said a case of negligent driving is being investigated.
- Also see:
Pedestrian killed on the R40 – 197 pedestrians have been killed since January 2015
Injured pedestrian still unidentified after run-in with taxi
