'I'd rather have bled to death'

2007-12-04 22:59

Marietie Louw-Carstens

Mookgopong - Hettie Janse van Rensburg, who lost four fingers when they were chopped off by attackers using garden shears, decided she'd rather bleed to death than be killed by her attackers.

That's what a badly injured Hettie, 70, told her stepson, Pierre, shortly after the horrifying attack on herself and her husband, Theuns, 72.

Pierre told Beeld newspaper on Tuesday: "One attacker told her in the course of the night to come out of the bathroom where she was hiding, and he'd call an ambulance for her.

"It was just a device to lure her out to kill her. She decided she would bleed to death, rather than have them kill her."

Beeld reported earlier that Hettie managed to lock herself in the bathroom, even though four fingers had been lopped off her left hand.

She hid there until a neighbour found her the next morning.

Fingers amputated

Hettie wrapped a towel around her left hand to stem the bleeding.

She still has no idea how she managed to lock herself in, despite her extensive injuries.

Theuns' dentures and one of Hettie's fingers were found lying in the blood-spattered house when police started searching for leads on Monday.

The four fingers of her left hand, which were cut off with gardens shears, were amputated up to the first joint on Monday night.

Hettie and Theuns are both in a critical condition in Unitas Hospital's intensive-care unit in Centurion.

Pierre said: "My stepmother's still very dazed and my father can't speak at all."

He said his father could possibly have brain damage from when the attackers repeatedly hit him on the head with a panga.

"There was brain haemorrhaging, which has been drained, and he's numb on the right side of his body."

Theuns will apparently be kept under strong sedation until Friday.

"If my father survives the attack, he is very, very strong." He is a diabetic and has already had two heart-bypass operations.

After Theuns lost consciousness on Sunday night, his attackers undressed him and put him on the couple's bed.

One attacker lay next to him, watching TV for several hours.

The attackers apparently thought he had died. There was a sheet over him when neighbour Martin Schmidt found him on Monday morning.

Hettie also thought he had died.

The attackers took their time - eight hours - to plunder the house.

Trompie Jonker of Tromar Emergency Services in Bela-Bela who treated the couple in Modimolle, said Hettie's arm was so badly broken that two bones were sticking through the skin.

Three men released

"An unbelievable amount of force was used."

Jonker said it would have taken too long to get a helicopter for the trip to Unitas Hospital, so they took the couple through by ambulance.

Sapa reported on Tuesday night that two Zimbabwean nationals had been arrested in connection with the attack.

Superintendent Mohale Ramatseba said the two men were due to appear in the Naboomspruit Magistrate's Court on Friday.

- Beeld