Family fights off robbers

2008-04-16 19:58

Virginia Keppler

Pretoria - A father from the Mooikloof security complex in eastern Pretoria was shot seven times early on Tuesday morning when he took on two armed robbers with his bare hands to keep them away from his sons' bedrooms.

After the robbers had shot off the middle finger of his right hand and wounded him in the shoulder, knees, hand and arm, Jannie Fourie, 39, fell down in his one-year-old son Keanan's doorway in a last effort to protect him.

"One of the robbers wanted to execute me there on the floor but I turned and then he shot me in the stomach," Jannie said on Monday from his bed in the Pretoria East Hospital's intensive care unit.

His wife, Bernice, 39, tried to protect their other son, two-year-old Brandon, by holding the door of his room closed while the robbers shot at her through the door.

Hit him with the bed lamp

One of the robbers also went into the room of Bernice's mother, Hester Kok, 68, and tried to overpower her.

"But she hit one of the robbers over the head with her bed lamp and chased him from the room," Jannie said.

Bernice had climbed into bed with Brandon earlier that night to lull him to sleep and had fallen asleep there.

"I woke with a fright when I heard something like a key at the door of the passage which separates the bedrooms from the rest of the house," she said. This was at about 02:00.

She heard a creaking sound and jumped up.

"When I opened the child's bedroom door, there was a man standing in front of me, pointing a gun at me.

"There was another man and he started screaming. I also started screaming loudly and slammed the door.

"They tried to push the door open but I was pushing it closed from the inside while screaming the whole time.

"I sank to my haunches and then they shot at me through the bedroom door."

She was wounded in her right elbow.

When she realised that the robbers weren't trying to push the door open anymore she grabbed Brandon and hid in the wardrobe.

Jannie jumped up when he heard his wife's screams.

"When I got to the passage I saw two silhouettes standing at the bottom of the passage and then the first shots rang out.

"I was on the first guy and I just kept hitting him.

"At one stage I grabbed his revolver's barrel and tried to prevent him from shooting me in the head, then he shot off the middle finger of my right hand but I kept hitting him.

"I think I dropped the first guy. When the other guy tried to go into my son's (Keanan's) room, I grabbed him and hit him."

Jannie said this robber also let loose on him with his gun.

By this stage they had already shot him four times.

"I kept fighting but then they shot me in the knees and then I fell in my son's doorway."

The robbers then fled with a wallet and a cellphone.

Police spokesperson captain Phillip Lekoantsane said the robbers had shot at the family with a 9mm pistol and a revolver.

Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dollman said they had treated Jannie before taking him to the hospital.

Jannie said he was in a lot of pain "bit at least I'm still alive".

Jannie's brother Anton said that the robbers had opened the kitchen door and the passage door in some way without breaking them.

- Beeld