Sasol victim second in family

2004-09-08 07:18

Marida Fitzpatrick

Secunda - One of last week's victims in the Sasol explosion lost his brother 11 years ago in a similar blast at another Sasol installation.

Gert van der Sandt, 35, who died of his injuries on Monday, lost his elder brother, Andries, then 33, during the Middelburg coal-mining disaster in 1993.

This disaster claimed the lives of 53 miners.

Van der Sandt's wife, Jenny, 35, said on Tuesday that it was extremely difficult for the family to deal with the heartache and trauma yet again.

"When we heard Gert was in the explosion, it was like a flashback. All the pain came back."

Van der Sandt will be buried in his brother's grave on Friday. "It should be this way," said Jenny, "they were very close."

According to her, her husband dreamed of his brother two nights before the explosion.

"He woke me in the middle of the night to tell me about it.

"It was as if his brother came to fetch him."

Looked out for others to the end

Hester van der Sandt, the brothers' mother, was too distraught on Tuesday to speak to Beeld. She has two other sons and a daughter.

According to Jenny, her husband had tried to put out the fire even after he had been badly injured - "They found him lying against a wall with a fire extinguisher in his hands."

"That was how he was. Even if he had been badly injured, he would have still tried to help others."

She said her husband, a shift boss, had given everything to Sasol "now even his life".

Jenny said she had been shocked to see him after the blast.

"He looked terrible, but I was so relieved he was alive."

But that relief changed to grief as her husband's condition deteriorated suddenly. He died in the early hours of Monday morning.

"I am just grateful that I could say goodbye. I kissed him on Saturday afternoon and he told me he loved me," she said.

Seven victims are still being treated at the Highveld Medi-Clinic. Four of them are in the intensive-care unit.

Three of them are in a critical and unstable condition, said hospital manager Ben Otto.

- Beeld