Samaritan saves man's life
2005-05-18 08:42
Johannesburg - A Good Samaritan saved the life of young man who was knocked down on a highway in a similar way his own son had been injured nine years ago.
Hennie de Villiers's own son, Heinrich, died of heart failure last year at the age of 16 years after having been in a coma for nearly nine years, owing to a hit-and-run accident.
Now De Villiers has saved the life of Shaun Hide, 26, victim of a similar accident.
De Villiers, 46, of Randburg on Tuesday related how he held Hide's hand on Saturday shortly after 02:00 on the N12 highway (near the Germiston Road off-ramp) on the East Rand, and encouraged him by saying: "I will stay with you, I promise. I will not leave you until you get help and are in hospital."
Hide's father, Harold Hide, said his son seemed to have collided with a barrier railing after the right rear-wheel of his bakkie burst. "Be could probably not find his cellphone in the dark. There is a filling station nearby, he was probably going there to phone me when somebody knocked him down."
Hide jun was lying across the right lane of the highway when De Villiers swerved to miss "something" in the road. "Only after I had gone past, I saw it was a man lying there."
De Villiers switched on his hazard lights and reversed to Hide jun. "He was in pretty bad shape. His belt and denims were torn to ribbons. And then I saw blood running down the road ... There were tyre marks over his shirt, someone must have driven over him."
"When I asked him if he had been knocked down by a car, he squeezed my hand. I kept talking to him. He didn't want to let go of my hand."
De Villiers's friend, David Scholtz, meanwhile regulated the traffic. About 10 minutes later, Hide jun was airlifted to Union Hospital in Alberton.
James Bean, spokesperson of this hospital, said Hide had multiple fractures and the flesh and skin of his lower back and buttocks had been torn off. His condition was critical, but stable, Bean said.
On Tuesday, Hide jun frequently opened his eyes while his father kept a vigil at his hospital bed. "When I told him I loved him, he nodded," said Hide sen.
Hide jun is divorced and has two children, Sebastian, 6, and Savanna, 2.
Meanwhile, it was still not known who had knocked him down. "I don't know how these people sleep at night. We need closure. I just want to know what happened," said his sister, Jacky Hide, 24, with tears in her eyes.
Hide sen would like to establish a fund to cover his son's medical expenses.