Girl leaves suicide note on cellphone
2012-03-29 11:50
Bloemfontein - A 14-year-old girl from Heidedal, Bloemfontein, left a message on her new cellphone before committing suicide on Monday.
“I’m sorry mom, I don’t want to live anymore. I want to be with mama euna and dad ni (Nico)”, was the message that appeared intended as an SMS to her mother. It was never sent.
Darné McMolale, a Grade 8 pupil at Petunia High School hanged herself with one of her mother’s scarves in her parents’ house after taking pills.
She had been raised by her grandmother, Euna, and grandfather, Nico, until she was 5. They had since passed away.
Second suicide
She is the second girl from the same school to have committed suicide this month. Grade 10 pupil Leonie Peters, 17, hanged herself with a belt in her home earlier this month.
Another girl had also tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was found in time by her grandmother and taken to hospital. She has since been discharged.
Heidi McMolale, Darné’s mother, said her daughter had shown no signs of depression or anxiety. Her daughter’s sudden death was a shock to her and others.
"She came back early from school on Monday and didn’t want to go to town with us. She said we should lock her in the house as she was going to lie down to take a nap. She didn’t seem strange or upset.”
Darné was found by her 8-year-old brother, Danian and her mother’s friend, Desmond Bergman, where she was hanging from a security gate in the passage.
Her mother, a nurse at the Mediclinic Bloemfontein, immediately took down her daughter and attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
“She was already ice cold and blue. You want to save your child’s life. If only she came to talk to me, I could’ve done something. But the way she tied the scarf, she had ensured it couldn’t come undone.”
McMolale said she would miss her friendly and cheerful daughter.
23 suicides in SA each day
Leonie’s mother, Caroline Peters, said her daughter had not been herself on the day of her death. “She went through the drawers in her cupboard but wouldn’t say what was wrong. I just left her to be alone.”
Leonie loved writing and was always dancing in the house with her mother and younger brother, Luciano, 8.
Zane Wilson, founder of the South African Depression & Anxiety Group (Sadag) said there were 23 suicides in the country each day.
“More than 300 people try to take their lives each day and 23 succeed. It is terrible and more must be done to prevent it.”
- Sadag suicide crisis line 0800 567 567.
