The four men who were injured when a high mast light fell on them on Saturday, August 28, have been discharged from the hospital.
Messrs Daniel Thoba and Tsepo Shabangu described the day of their accident as a really bad day.
They told Ridge Times that they often sat at the base of the high mast light and it had never before shown signs of inconsistency.
“Everyone here in the township sits under these lights. If you go to any of eMbalenhle extensions, you will find groups of young boys sitting or playing next to them.
“That is why we believe that it was a bad day for us. This high mast light is almost 10 years old and we grew up sitting under it. Why didn’t fall on us before?” asked Mr Thoba.
Mr Shabangu doesn’t know what had happened. He said the one moment he was sitting under the light and then he woke up at the clinic from the injury to his left leg.
Ms Ouma Mkhonza said the glass door of her bakkie’s canopy broke when the falling high mast light shattered it that day.
She rushed the four men to the hospital with the same bakkie.
She is a vendor and used to park her vehicle next to light for many years.
“These guys always sit under the light. I was so shocked about what had happened.
“How the high mast light can come down without a human’s touch, I thought I was daydreaming,” she said.
Ms Mkhonza is puzzled over what has happened to the fallen light.
“The municipality never showed up to repair it or to collect what was left of it. The debris was there on the ground for the whole day, but it simply vanished during the night.
“I will not trust anything that is installed by the Govan Mbeki Municipality because they are not to be trusted,” said Ms Mkhonza.
She claims to have reported the incident to the Ward 10 councillor, Ms Smangele Ntuli, who allegedly had said she wouldn’t entertain their matter.
However, Ms Ntuli refuted the allegation by saying that no one formally reported the incident.
“I was buying vetkoek from Ms Mkhonza when she told me about her bakkie and that she transported people who were injured by the high mast light. I thought she was just telling me the story, not reporting an incident.”
Ms Ntuli said she does not know anything about the incident because she was not present when it happened.
“I told Mr Elijah Mkhombe, a senior electrician of eMbalenhle, that I heard a high mast light had fallen on people.
“ Mr Mkhombe responded by saying high mast lights can’t just fall unless someone interfered with it. The information about that incident came to me only several days after it happened,” said Ms Ntuli.
The municipal spokesman, Mr Donald Green, said at the time that the municipality had not been informed about people being injured, but had only received reports of vandalism to high mast lights at eMbalenhle.
