Two AG Solutions reaction officers were ambushed by gunmen after tracking a hijacked vehicle. Trapped in a downpour of bullets with a gunshot wound to the knee, the reaction officer and his partner managed to crawl their way to safety.

Ethiene Lourens and Callen Herbst of AG Solutions responded to a hijacking outside Barberton on Monday afternoon, June 13, when the incident occurred.

Lourens, who was shot in the knee, survived the attack. He is currently still in hospital and in need of multiple operations.

Speaking to Lowvelder about the ambush, Herbst says that following the call-out to the hijacking, they began tracking the vehicle, which led them to a dirt road in a plantation outside Barberton.

He says when they did not find the car where the coordinates had indicated, the pair spotted tyre tracks and decided to follow them.

“We drove along a very narrow dirt road for about 8km until we came across a freshly chopped tree blocking the road,” says Herbst.

He was able to direct Lourens around the tree, and after driving a little further, they found the hijacked vehicle.

“The car was already completely stripped and there was no one in the area when we found it. We got back onto the road to get to an area that had cellphone reception so we could call the police when we came across the tree again.

“It was starting to get dark and we decided to try and move it so the police could get through,” he says.

Herbst says as they were fixing rope to the back of their vehicle to move the tree, a sudden burst of gunfire ripped through the air around them.

“They just started firing all of a sudden, and we could hear three different guns being used, all long rifles (R1s and R5s) from different directions.”

Herbst says he immediately dived down into the bush and began firing back.

“Ethiene was shot in the knee. I carried him out of the gunfire into the bush and then we both just started crawling away from the gunfire. We could not see any of the suspects and we were running low on ammunition.”

After crawling almost 2km through bush, and with a bullet wound to Lourens’ knee, the pair saw cellphone lights.

“We stayed down and didn’t know if it was the suspects looking for us or not. Suddenly, we heard footsteps nearing us, but they were not coming from the people who were on their cellphones.”

As the footsteps got closer, a security van drove down the road and Herbst was able to flag it down.

“We loaded Ethiene into the vehicle and drove out to the main road, where we called the police and ER24.”

Herbst says the whole experience felt like a movie.

“It was too close,” he says.

A case of attempted murder was opened at the Nelspruit Police Station and has since been transferred to Barberton’s.

Herbst adds that a case of hijacking was opened at the Barberton Police Station as well, however, the spokesperson had not responded to a media query by the time of going to press.

Herbst says Lourens is thought to be recovering well, but many operations are still needed, and it is unclear just how long the road to recovery will be.