Blue light Merc sends bakkie flying
October 11 2012 at 08:08am
By Shaun Smillie
By Shaun Smillie
Supplied
Aslam Ebrahim's bakkie rolled 3 times after being hit by a Mercedes Benz registered to the North West province department and driven by members of the SAPS VIP unit.
When the Mercedes-Benz hit his bakkie, Aslam Ebrahim closed his eyes.
Seconds earlier, he had seen the brown luxury vehicle in his rear-view mirror, speeding towards his Corsa bakkie.
It was going fast, he said.
The driver and passenger in the Mercedes were said to be members of the SAPS VIP unit.
It was 7.25 on Monday morning and Ebrahim was about 2km from the Westonaria turn-off on the N12, heading east.
“I see this Mercedes veer to the right. He is heading straight towards the middle island, then he pulls back to the left and that is where he loses control and hits me,” Ebrahim explained.
Aslam Ebrahim. Picture: Itumeleng English
INLSA
The 40-year-old father-of-two was heading to work at the time and believes he was travelling between 90 and 100km/h.
His bakkie hit the barrier at the side of the road, and he closed his eyes.
“I felt the car lift up,” he said.
His bakkie rolled three times.
Ebrahim was wearing his safety belt, and he believes that saved his life.
His accident is the latest in a number of accidents that have involved members of the SAPS’s VIP unit.
The most infamous is the accident during which a blue-light convoy was involved in knocking over teenager Thomas Ferreira after one of the vehicles drove through a red traffic light.
What happened after the accident on Monday morning is what angered both Ebrahim and his wife Rouksana.
“He was still stuck in the bakkie and they didn’t see that he was okay,” Rouksana said.
She had arrived on the scene of the accident shortly after it had taken place.
When she got there, the two occupants of the Mercedes were walking around the accident scene, but neither of them approached her to ask about her husband.
“They didn’t show any compassion at all,” Rouksana said.
“One of them went and urinated behind the Mercedes.”
The Mercedes is registered to the North West Department of Transport to be driven by SAPS VIP unit members.
“What if I was trapped? They could have saved me,” said Ebrahim, who added that the men hadn’t tried to assist him.
Some passing motorists stopped to help him, and he was told to stay in his wrecked bakkie until paramedics arrived.
Ebrahim was taken to the nearby Leslie Williams Memorial Hospital, where it was found he had suffered bruising and minor lacerations.
Rouksana said she had noticed a tow-truck driver waiting at the side of the road. She had asked him why he wasn’t towing the vehicle shortly after Ebrahim was taken from the crash site.
“He told me that he wasn’t going to remove a car that still had a body inside. I told him my husband had been taken away to hospital,” she said.
“He couldn’t believe that someone could survive that crash. And he wasn’t the only one.”
National police media spokeswoman Colonel Tummi Shai said that according to procedure, SAPS VIP units may not stop at accident scenes. They inform local police authorities, who should respond.
“When VIP unit members are involved in an accident, there are security procedures that are followed, but these cannot be revealed,” she said. -The Star
