By: SIYABONGA SITHOLE
Johannesburg - A Soweto family say they are devastated following the death of their 7-year-old child, Sinikizwe Ndlovu, who was run over by a scholar bus on the school’s premises in Hector Pietersen Primary School also in Dobsonville last month.
It is reported that the learner was inside the school premises when on May 17, she along with her school friends were playing while waiting for their transport to fetch them.
A driver of one of the scholar transport who is said to have been playing loud music in his car while on a cellphone knocked the child over dragging her more than five metres before stopping.
Sinikizwe was injured during this incident and suffered extensive damage to her ribs and eye as brain matter came out of her eye as a result of the accident. The family was alerted to the accident by the school principal who assisted them with transport to Leratong Hospital where the child spent more than a month in ICU.
“We were called to the school by the principal and were told that, there has been an accident involving Sinikizwe. We rushed over to the school and were told we should go to the hospital as the accident had been very severe.
“We did not even get to find out exactly what had happened as everything happened so quick,” Senamile, the boy’s sister, said.
On Monday and after spending more than a month in intensive care unit, the family was informed of the death of their child who according to Senamile, died after having undergone more than five operations in efforts to save her. She had died after suffering broken ribs and lung failure as she was unable to breathe, speak or eat on her own since the day of the accident.
Her mother, Gcinile says she is deeply hurt as a parent and is unable to cope with the death of her daughter. "I am very hurt and saddened by her death. When we send our children to school, we do not send them to die but to get an education.
“It is now painful to me that my daughter has died under these tragic circumstances. All we want is help which has not been forthcoming from the school, the department of education as well as the police,“ she said.
Senamile added that they had been up and down seeking help from the district department of education and spoke to an official who told them the department was unable to do anything to help the family as the accident did not involve one of their employees with the police having done little to help them prioritise the matter.
This is a tragic time for us as a family as we had opened an incident report with the Doornkop Police after the accident and to this day nothing has happened. We are grateful to the principal who at least assisted us and came to visit us as a family, but as things stand, we are yet to hear from the department,“ she said.
Efforts to speak to the education department proved futile with the principal of the school saying he was in a meeting while the department had not responded to WhatsApp and emailed enquiries by time of going to print.
The family say all they want is to be assisted with the funeral and counselling which they are yet to receive from the department.
“We are helpless as no one wants to help us. As you can see the mother of the child is unemployed and we would have loved to get help and any sort of support to get the funeral done as early as we can while we wait for the processes to unfold,” Kate Ngozo who is also a family member added.
The Star