Mbombela hit-and-run: Graphic medical evidence and brutal character assassination

Graphic medical evidence and a potent onslaught on the investigating officer’s credibility marked the latest session of a hit-and-run trial.

Johan Louwrens (28) is accused of running Mbombelan businesswoman Letisia Niemann (38) over with his bakkie outside Mustangs – The Dancing Place on September 28, 2021, and then fleeing the scene – an incident that preceded her death.

In the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court on Thursday, October 31, proceedings entered into a trial-within-a-trial to determine whether the accused made an admission of guilt and whether the admission was made freely, without coercion or intimidation.

As he did in the main trial, the accused’s defence attorney, Eric Mashele, once again attempted to discredit former investigating officer Sergeant Pollock Ngxum, his premise being that the evidence Ngxum had presented was the fruit of a poisoned tree and that Ngxum had offered conflicting versions of events at different times during his testimony in chief. Whether this was on purpose or due to poor memory, Mashele said, had to be determined. Ngxum conceded the problem lay with his memory.

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Mashele put it to the witness that the accused had not made an admission to him, that Ngxum had fabricated the so-called admission out of desperation to get the case back on the roll (after it had been struck off due to a lack of evidence) and that if there indeed was an admission, it was obtained unconstitutionally. Ngxum denied these claims.

In addition, it emerged the accused might have been given access to alcohol or drugs while in prison between the time of his arrest on September 30 and the time his warning statement was done two days later on October 2

Under cross-examination, Ngxum told the court the accused was sober at the time of the arrest, but two days later (after two days behind bars without any outside visitors who had physical contact with him), there were indications that Louwrens was under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.

Alarmed by this, the presiding officer, Magistrate Patrick Morris, wanted to know where the accused would have got the substance from. Mashele then said he has had many cases in which the accused managed to get their hands on narcotics while in the cells.

Graphic medical evidence

Stepping away from the trial-within-a-trial to hear evidence from the trauma doctor who declared Niemann dead three years ago on September 29, the court heard Dr Mukadi Kabamba’s spine-chilling version of events.

Niemann was killed in a harrowing hit-and-run incident outside Mustangs – The Dancing Place. The court heard Louwrens allegedly hit Niemann with his white Toyota Hilux bakkie, before reversing over her and fleeing the scene.

Niemann was rushed to hospital in a critical condition. She clung to life for about two more hours while the trauma team fought valiantly to save her, before she ultimately bled out internally.

The court heard how blunt force trauma had caused organ rupture, which led to internal bleeding and eventual cardiac arrest and death.

Although the trauma team was able to restart her heart after the first cardiac arrest, the internal bleeding caused her heart to stop for a second time, from which she was unable to recover. This happened before the team was able to perform a computed tomography (commonly known as CT) scan to locate the source of the bleeding and repair it in theatre.

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Kabamba, who at the time of the incident had already amassed 20 years’ experience as a casualty doctor, gave a detailed description of the condition he had received Niemann in and the life-saving procedures they performed.

He told the court Niemann was brought to the Kiaat Private Hospital by ambulance at 23:56 on September 28 in a critical condition. She had sustained multiple injuries, was in a coma and was unstable. Unable to sufficiently breathe on her own, Niemann was being manually ventilated with an Ambu bag.

Kabamba told the court when he assessed Niemann, her blood pressure was unreadable, she had a heart rate of 40 beats per minute and a respiratory rate of 10 cycles per minute. Her extremities were cold, the oxygen saturation had dropped to an alarmingly low 56% and she was unresponsive with a Glasgow Coma Scale reading of three out of a possible 15.

Both Niemann’s pupils were dilated and non-reactive to light. She also had multiple bruises on her forehead and chin, a bruised right middle finger and an abrasion on her left forearm.

Amid Niemann’s sister, Lizel Boshoff’s sorrowful sobbing echoing from the gallery, Kabamba told the court about the horrific degloving injury she had sustained to the right side of her chest – believed to be caused by the movement of the bakkie wheel as it rolled onto her chest, peeling off the skin.

The court further heard that a urinary catheter was inserted immediately after the assessment to drain urine and, in an effort to improve her oxygen saturation, Niemann was intubated with a 6.5mm endotracheal tube and connected to a ventilator.

That is when the first of the two cardiac arrests occurred. Kabamba told the court she was also administered adrenaline to help restart the heart, and the team performed two cycles of CPR before he eventually declared her dead at 01:20 the next morning.

Although she had consistently been receiving fluids via an peripheral intravenous (IV) line to keep blood circulating through her body, it was not enough, and Niemann’s heart eventually pumped on empty, which caused it to stop for the last time.

The matter was postponed to November 21 for further arguments and possible judgment in the trial-within-a-trial.

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