Missing teen found on mountain
The girl's cellphone signal was traced and directed the search party to the farm
WHITE RIVER – Swift reaction by local crime-fighters led to a 14-year-old girl being found after she had gone missing at dusk on Sunday. She went for a walk on a farm outside town and did not return.
A family member contacted CSG Hi-Tech Lowveld to report that she was nowhere to be found.
A search was launched together with the region’s Off-road Rescue Unit (Orru), J&M Security and several community members.
Social-media platforms were used to ask the public to be on the lookout for the teen. Her photos were posted on various Facebook groups.
Stacey Gryvenstein assisted with the search. Her husband, Albert, is the operational manager of Bossies Community Justice. According to Stacey, the girl’s family went to the mall on Sunday. She did not accompany them. “When they came home, they found that she was missing,” she said. The girl’s cellphone signal was traced and directed the search party to the farm.
J&M’s Shaun Terblanche told Lowvelder while searching the farm, the rescue team heard the teen shouting for help.
“This was at approximately 21:00,” he said. They followed the sound and found her on a ledge.
“She was scared and alone after having been in the dark for a couple of hours,” he said.
“She went for a walk on the farm and made her way up a mountain to a ledge to look at the view. While she was there, her keys dropped, as she bent down to pick them up, she slipped and fell and hurt her ankle. She also lost her phone,” he said.
CSG Hi-Tech Lowveld Medical Services manager Freek Oosthuizen said she had bruises and scratches on her body and a possible fractured ankle. She was taken to Mediclinic Nelspruit.
Her next of kin referred Lowvelder to the mother’s fiancé who declined to comment.
