'Angel' scares off robbers
2007-10-03 23:59
Pretoria - "I folded my hands across my chest and said 'You're not going to shoot me. Put the gun down.
"To my surprise he put it down, but then the other two started beating me with knobkieries."
Those were the words of Doctor Frans Saaijman, 63, of Lynnwood in Pretoria.
Saaijman, who is the chairperson of Agri Pretoria, and his wife Jeanette, 63, were surprised by three armed robbers at their home at about 21:30 on Monday night.
Two of his ribs were broken, his left eye socket was fractured, he had to have several stitches to his head and his eyes are bruised and swollen.
"I was lying in bed reading when I heard a scuffling in the passage. I thought it was my wife tidying up in one of the bedrooms and I got up to help her.
"When I walked out of the bedroom, one of the robbers came up to me, crouching. He pressed the gun to my head and told me to shut up."
After he'd told the robber to put the gun down, the other two began beating him.
"I told them 'don't beat me like that. I'm a doctor and I work with people'. Then I reached out to one and asked him to help me up. The one who had the pistol helped me up and we walked down the passage.
His wife, who had heard nothing and had meanwhile gone to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, had locked the security gate that separates the bedrooms from the rest of the house.
"When we came around the corner of the passage, the robbers got a huge fright to see this 63-year-old woman in her dressing gown with a glass of water in hand.
The one threw down the jewellery box and they jumped through the bedroom window where they had entered, and vanished.
"I think they thought they'd seen an angel!" laughed Saaijman.
His wife phoned their neighbour to get help.