Bullet grazes woman 3 times, she survives
With blood dripping down her spectacles, it was in that moment a local woman realised she had been hit by a bullet following a armed robbery at a cash-based office in town two weeks ago.
“I saw the blood and I just thought, ‘I am dead’.”
The woman, who cannot be named as she fears for her and her family’s life, told Lowvelder of the moments leading up to the shooting and how she thought she was at death’s door.
The armed robbery occurred at a cash-based office used to pay farmworkers on October 29 at about 10:00.
The woman said on that morning, the staff were busy counting money and sorting it into trays when two men entered the office.
“I was about to give the money tray to another employee to put into envelopes when I looked down the passage and saw two men approaching. I saw the security guard down on the ground and I looked at the one robber – he was pointing a gun at me.”
She said the man pushed her backwards and she realised that they were being robbed.
“I just went down on my knees. There was another staff member on the ground and I saw another hiding under a table.”
She said she heard the robbers demanding money from one of the other employees near the tray.
“Another male staff member walked in from the back of the office and was pushed on top of me. Our phones were taken by the robbers. As they were leaving the office, I heard a gunshot.
“I wanted to try and get up, but I just saw blood dripping down from my spectacles. That was when I knew I had been shot. I just thought, ‘This is it, I am dead’.”
The woman said she had been rushed to Shongwe Hospital where they stitched up the wound on her forehead, but when she mentioned pain in the back of her head, the doctors found two more bullet grazes there. This was caused due to the bullet ricocheting off the floor and striking the back of her head.
“The hospital said I was very lucky to be alive. The doctors kept coming into the room to see the woman who had survived being grazed by a bullet three times.”
An urgent manhunt has since been launched for five men who robbed the office. CCTV footage shows them using a silver Mercedes AMG with a sunroof.
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Hi-Tech Onderberg Region’s Marc Haarhoff said they are offering a R10 000 reward for any information that would lead them to their location, or lead to the men’s arrest.
He said according to the eyewitness accounts of the woman and others at the office, one of the robbers had been armed with a nine millimetre that is dark grey in colour. He believes the firearm could be a Taurus.
Haarhoff added that the getaway vehicle had false plates and that the car had not been through the Nkomazi Toll Gate in the past eight months. He suspects the plates were brought in to Malalane before the robbery.
He added that CCTV footage outside the building the day before the robbery shows the men casing the place.
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