A man who was left for dead after being shot nine times at a cemetery was discharged from Rob Ferreira Hospital on Monday. With bullet wounds to his chest, arms, back, thigh and the left side of his head, Leonard Milanzi (48) shared his remarkable story of survival and how a chance encounter ultimately saved his life.

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“I can’t believe I am here,” he said, sitting up straight in his hospital bed.

Milanzi lives in Mataffin and works as a CCTV camera installer. He received a call on May 11 from an unknown person requesting his services to install cameras at a school.

“I told the man I was not available that day. The following day, around 10:00, I received another call from the same man. He asked to meet at the school and insisted on paying for a taxi.”

Milanzi took a taxi to meet the supposed client and, after waiting for a few minutes, a sedan stopped to pick him up. “The car looked like it came from a scrapyard. There was no glass in the side windows. When I got into the car, I saw another man in the back seat who looked familiar.” The driver then asked Milanzi if they could stop at a farm to consult with a herdsman.

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“I started to panic when I realised I couldn’t open the doors.”

Milanzi said they drove to a remote area near a cemetery and the driver opened the door for his accomplice, who reportedly produced a firearm and fired two shots toward the mountains.

“I asked them what they were doing and the next moment they told me to sit down and demanded my phone.” Milanzi handed over his two phones and was interrogated about a stolen laptop. When he told them he knew nothing about it, the men allegedly instructed him to lie face down on the ground and robbed him of his money and smartwatch.

“I remember asking them if they were seriously going to go ahead with this,” Milanzi said, adding that moments later, at around 15:00, the men opened fire on him. He recalled hearing one of them say he was dead before they drove away.

Milanzi said he temporarily lost his vision, but after about five minutes he managed to stand up and hide in nearby bushes, terrified that the men would return. “I rested in the bushes, but I knew I had to keep walking so they wouldn’t find me.”

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At around 19:00 he noticed that his shirt was covered in blood and decided to take it off. He walked for a few kilometres in the night cold, wounded and afraid, occasionally resting in the bushes. “In the early morning, at around 04:00, I saw a cattle herder and asked for help. I asked for a phone, but he didn’t have one. I waited for help, but nobody returned,” he said.

Milanzi then made his way to the main road and lay next to the roadside, where two women later found him and allowed him to call his brother.

He remained there until members of the Ehlanzeni Diving Unit came upon him. “We were waiting for a helicopter to search for a missing woman in Pienaar when I noticed a strange object next to the road that at first looked like a calf,” Captain Pottie Potgieter said.

“When I got closer, I saw blood and a badly injured man.”

The helicopter arrived shortly afterwards and medical personnel immediately airlifted Milanzi to hospital.

“I was so relieved,” Milanzi said. He praised Potgieter, known as the ‘Sbali of the Lowveld’, for showing compassion by stopping to help him.

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“I thank God for saving my life and sending the right people my way. We need more people like that in the world,” he said.