Joost's brother gets medal

2004-10-07 08:21

Marida Fitzpatrick

Pretoria - Joost van der Westhuizen's older brother stole the limelight from his rugby-playing brother on Wednesday night when the police honoured him with a sought-after bravery award.

Inspector Wessie van der Westhuizen and his colleague, Inspector Louwtjie Lourens, were the first police officers in Gauteng to receive the Silver Cross for bravery.

"It's a dream come true," said an overwhelmed Van der Westhuizen. "Joost's dream was to play for the Springboks, and the Silver Cross was mine."

The Gold Cross for bravery is presented posthumously to family of police members who had died during acts of bravery. "We're still working on the gold one," Van der Westhuizen joked.

Risked their lives

He and Lourens got the special recognition for an incident almost six years ago when they repeatedly risked their lives to arrest three transit robbers.

During a chase on the R21 highway and later in Kempton Park, the suspects fired at Van der Westhuizen and Lourens with AK-47s.

Van der Westhuizen was driving. "They didn't stop shooting at us for one moment, and we constantly returned fire. The tarred road between us lighted up like a Christmas tree."

Lourens was hit twice during the crossfire. One of the bullets hit his bullet-proof vest while the other hit the inside of his thigh.

"I asked him if I needed to take him to hospital, but he said: 'No, I'm not bleeding, let's get them!'"

Learnt to tackle from Joost

Eventually, after a high-speed chase of 200km/h through the streets of Kempton Park at times, the robbers lost control of their vehicle.

Although the two officers didn't have any ammunition left by that time, they followed the fleeing robbers on foot.

Lourens's injury hampered him, but Van der Westhuizen caught up with one of them and brought him down.

"I learnt how to tackle from my brother. The robber had no chance," he laughed.

The two agree they can "thank their lucky stars" they are still alive.

"We definitely had an angel with us that night. He might not have many feathers left, but he was there."

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- Beeld