'Teddy bear' in rain a dead boy

2004-01-28 22:37

Christel Raubenheimer

Pretoria - Teachers at a Pretoria nursery school made a shocking discovery on Monday when they realised that what they thought was a teddy bear lying in the rain-soaked street, was the body of a seven-year-old boy.

Tshepo Heinrich Schroder of Kwaggasrand lay in the street, clutching a sandwich in his hand, after being killed by a hit-and-run driver.

His mother, Ursula Schroder, who worked at the school, said on Wednesday she heard two teachers talking about a teddy bear that was lying in the rain.

"I decided not to eat lunch, and to go out and look at what was in the street."

She said someone then said it was a child that had been hit by a car.

"When I got close to him I saw his feet and clothes and realised it was my child. I just collapsed."

'My child was so little...'

Tshepo was a Grade 1 pupil at Kwaggasrand Primary School. He walked to his mother's school each afternoon where he waited for her to finish work.

According to Schroder, "a white car" hit him at high speed. The driver then sped off.

"Everyone makes mistakes, but it doesn't help to run away. The driver didn't even stop. My child was so little..."

Tshepo's body was so badly disfigured that a friend of Schroder's officially identified the child's body at the mortuary to spare his mother further trauma.

Schroder would have got married on Wednesday. Now, instead of a wedding, she will be attending her son's funeral, scheduled for Tuesday.

- Beeld