Red-hot paintjob leaves student blue

Car catches fire after leaving respray shop

Imagine you’re a young student in your first year with your whole future ahead of you and today you are getting your very first car back from the spray painters. Flashy red exterior, red and black imitation leather seats and last but not least, sparkling mag wheels! Sure it’s not a brand new car, but exciting nevertheless.

That excitement got messed up for a young man and his two friends today as they were making their way home from the spray painters for the first time.

Only about 5 minutes away from the spray painters in La Rochelle, south of Johannesburg, the driver of the little red Mazda was waved to stop by a man arriving at his home in the residential area of Rosettenville.

At first the young man was perturbed being stopped by a stranger, after all Rosettenville is not a safe area.

He stopped only when he realised what the man was shouting, jumping out of the car - "Get out! Your car is smoking underneath!".

The young man and two student friends jumped out of the car just as a huge flame emerged from the bonnet.

The man who stopped them was a mechanic who, by then came running into the street with large buckets of water and washing powder - the best cure for burning petrol and oil, he says. The car was pushed across the road onto a pavement by bystanders.

The cause of the blaze was the fact that the spray painters did not connect the battery properly and it came loose, and petrol leaked onto it somehow. A lethal combination, says a panel beater (from a different company!) who was a bystander.

The panel beaters denied these claims and were not available for comment.

The owner of the car went to a nearby police station to lay charges of negligence, after all if he was not stopped and there was an explosion, three young lives would’ve been in danger

Witnesses claim to have seen the smoke two blocks away.

It’s good to know that there are still people out there who care, like the mechanic in this case.

The car was towed away shortly after the incident.

If you have your car overhauled, be sure to check everything afterwards or if you don’t know about cars, take someone with who does.

My kids want to go to heaven

Those who read my articles would know that I usually write happy articles, but the last week I've been quiet. The two articles I wrote were pretty sad.

The truth is that I've had a horrible week and it's not getting any better.

Last Sunday I saw two people in body bags on the pavement and one in foil, being treated for shock.

I was home alone with the kids on Wednesday night when someone was hijacked across the road and a shootout took place. My kids were lying on the floor as I was afraid of bullets coming through the window.

On Thursday night Lucky Dube died 4 blocks away from my home in a hijacking.

Today: My husband left for a meeting about an hour ago to his favourite coffee shop, right next door to Pick 'n Pay. He always sits outside the shop by the escalators.

The guy who is a security guard at Pick 'n Pay was on his way to the bank, going down the escalators when armed robbers shot him dead and took the money.

I live in fear and I have become a hermit. I don't want to go anywhere. My 6 year old kids want to go to heaven.

Hijacker getting beat up good

Rosettenville, Wednesday 20h40: My husband was out 30 minutes ago. I was sitting in front of my laptop thinking about what I could write about today. My kids were sitting around playing quietly.

Today is my sister's birthday and the 20th would've been my late gran's. Also, the 20th is the anniversary of the hijacking of my neighbour which I saw through the kids' window 3 years ago. Remembering that, I tried to push the very vivid memories of the gun pressed into her stomach out of my mind...

Suddenly, gunshots erupted... I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me, thinking what Wade would say: "Honey, you've got to drop the paranoia!" I smiled and turned back to the computer. The gunshots were fired again - this must all have happened in a split second.

I quickly got the kids to lie on the floor whilst I went to invesigate.

A grey and black 4x4 sped around the corner - some more gunshots. Another car gave chase. I recognised the 4x4 as the car of neighbours that live diagonally across the road. Witnesses seem to be under the impression that they made off with the man the 4x4 belongs to.

According to eyewitnesses, a car with off duty investigators was being pulled into the parking lot when the 4x4 behind it was being hijacked. The officers opened fire on the 4x4 containing the hijackers.

There was mayhem as one of the hijackers was caught by angry neighbours and beaten up good.

Police arrived on the scene minutes later and took the suspect into custody.

Apparently nobody was injured in the shoot out.

Death on a pavement

After weeks of persistent rain, I woke up to a beautiful October morning, warm and rich with the smell of lavender and jasmine. It was the kind of morning when you can’t wait to jump out of bed and conquer the day. Which is just what I did – and soon we were on our way to church to be refreshed and revived with the Promise of the future.

On the way back home I commented on how everyone seemed to be in such a rush for a relaxing Sunday morning.

I saw something that I wanted to take a photo of for Reporter and we turned back. After taking the photo, we noticed an ambulance following us slowly, with no siren, just the lights flashing, causing that queer sensation I always get when I see ambulance lights. It didn’t make much effort to go past us and when we turned into our driveway it continued on to where I then noticed a fire-truck a few houses down the road. I asked my husband to continue on, as perhaps there was a story for me.

Indeed, there was a story, but I chose not to get out of the car. There were two bodies zipped into blue bags and one wrapped in foil, which is usually done when a patient is in severe shock. A few distraught faces surrounded the bodies whilst they were being loaded into the ambulance. I understood why the ambulance was not in such a rush – it was already too late for them to save those people.

I couldn’t get myself to get out of the car and harass those people that have just experienced such tragedy. I don’t know what happened, but living in South Africa I guess it was just another Sunday and it was just that family’s turn to be robbed or hijacked. For those poor mourners it marks the loss of three loved ones, for the robbers it marks victory. They gained materially – a car, a cell phone or two, maybe a television.

Telling my family about what I saw, the response was a simple “Really? Shame.” - as they went about doing what they were busy with. Just last night we observed how there used to be 1 tragic story on the news perhaps every month when things were bad. Now, if we are lucky there are only 4…

Someone will report the story that I chose not to and get paid the money that I so desperately need. I could not walk up to those sad, shocked and distraught people and prey on their misery.